John Faithfull Fleet was born in London in 1847. He joined the Indian civil service in 1865 and studied Sanskrit at University College, London, before joining the Bombay Presidency in 1867. He held many roles including Assistant Collector and then Magistrate, Educational Inspector, in the Southern Division (1872), Assistant Political Agent in Kolhapur and the Southern Maratha Country (1875), and Collector and Magistrate (1882). He began publishing articles about inscriptions in the mid-1860s. whilst continuing to study Sanskrit and Kannada. Fleet became the first epigraphist of the Government of India in 1883, and was subsequently appointed as the Collector and Magistrate of Sholapur in 1886.
Fleet retired from India in 1897 and settled in Ealing where he continued his epigraphical studies. He was awarded the Gold Medal in 1912.
The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge. The museum was founded in 1816 with the legacy of the library and art collection of Richard FitzWilliam, 7th Viscount FitzWilliam. The bequest included £100,000 "to cause to be erected a good substantial museum repository". The Fitzwilliam now contains over 500,000 items and is one of the best museums in the United Kingdom.The collection was initially placed in the Perse School building in Free School Lane. It was moved in 1842 to the Old Schools in central Cambridge, which housed the Cambridge University Library. The museum opened in 1848. A further large bequest was made to the university in 1912 by Charles Brinsley Marlay, including £80,000 and 84 paintings from his private collection. A two-storey extension to the south-east, paid for partly by the Courtauld family, was added in 1931, greatly expanding the space of the museum.
The Finnish Oriental Society (Finska Orientsällskapet) ( SIS ) was founded in December 1917 to promote research and knowledge of Oriental cultures in Finland. Originally focused on the Middle East, it has since expanded to include Asia and Africa as a whole.