Hisamuddin Alam Shah was educated at Malay College, Kuala Kangsor. He became the sixth Sultan of Selangor, on 4 April 1938, four days after the death of his father. On 26 January 1939 he was crowned at Istana Mahkota Puri in Klang. In January 1942, Col. Fujiyama, the Japanese Military Governor of Selangor, invited Sultan Hisamuddin Alam Shah to King's House in Kuala Lumpur. He was told to surrender the regalia to his older brother, and the Japanese proclaimed Tengku Musa Eddin as the new Sultan. Hisamuddin Alam Shah declined to work with the Japanese and from 1943, refused their allowance awarded to him and his children. He returned to the throne in 1945, and in 1957, was elected Deputy Yang di-Pertuan Agong of independent Malaya. He was elected the second Yang di-Pertuan Agong in 1960 and in July declared the end of the state of emergency in Malaya. He died on 1 September 1960, the day fixed for his official installation.
Frank Fortescue Laidlaw was born at Galashiels on 1 February 1876 but spent his childhood in Guildford. He was educated at Uppingham School and Trinity College, Cambridge, studying Zoology. In 1899 he joined the Cambridge University Expedition to Malaya, under the leadership of W. W. Skeat, returning to England in the following year. He was then appointed Lecturer and Assistant Demonstrator in Zoology at Owen's College, Manchester. In 1903 he turned to the study of medicine and qualified from St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London, in 1909. In 1911 he took a practice at Uffculme, Devon, where he remained, except for three years in the R.A.M.C. in the first World War, until his retirement in 1945. He had a lifelong interest in natural history and for his services to Malayan natural history he was elected a corresponding member of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1920.
Laidlaw went to Malaya with Walter William Skeat (1866-1953), the anthropologist. However this letter is signed by W.O. Skeat and sent after W.W. Skeat's death. So presumably the author of the letter is William Oswald Skeat who was educated at Whitgift Grammer School, Croydon, and apprenticed under Gresley on GNR at the Doncaster Works. He gained experience in running the department at Peterborough, then moved to Stratford Works. He joined the staff of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1933, and edited their Proceedings from 1939. Between 1947 and 1950 he worked for British Council and from 1950 he was the Secretary of the Institution of Water Engineers.
Petrus Voorhoeve was born in December 1899 in Vlissengen. In 1919 he became a student at the University of Leiden, first studying theology before switching to Indonesian languages continuing his studies to complete a PhD in Batak Folk Tales. In 1927 he was appointed government linguist at Balai Pushtaka, the Bureau of Popular Literature in Jakarta. He was granted leave in 1933 but on his return in 1934 he became a librarian at the Royal Batavia Society of Arts and Science. In 1937 he became linguist in the service of the Self-governing Districts of North Sumatra charged with creating a Simalungen dictionary. He was interned by the Japanese Army in 1942 and separated from his wife and children until after the War when, in 1946, they returned to the Netherlands. Voorhoeve then took up an appointment at the University Library in Leiden but returned to Indonesia in 1947 to complete his 20 years of service necessary for a full pension. He worked for the Institute of Linguistic and Cultural Research before returning to Leiden in 1949 to take up his position again of Curator. He catalogued many Malay manuscripts working at institutions around the world. He died in 1996.