Novelist and naturalist Richard Jeffries was born on a farm near Swindon in Wiltshire. As a young man he learned shorthand and began writing for journals. He published his first novel in 1874, and in 1876 moved to London. Both his novels and his periodical essays centre on country life, his descriptions of the Wiltshire landscape and of the interaction of the human and natural worlds being especially evocative. Jeffries died almost destitute following a long illness; sympathy aroused by these circumstances lead his friends to establish a fund for his family.

Charles Thornton Jefferies was born abt. 1805 in Bristol, England.

He was a printer, bookbinder, bookseller, and stationer. He ran the printing and bookselling business C.T. Jefferies & Sons from the historic Canynge House in Bristol, England. In 1881, the bookstore premises survived a damaging fire.

In 1828, he married Sarah Sanforth (1811–1871). He died on January 28, 1884, in Bristol, England.