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Sir Henry Ellis was an English librarian and antiquarian. In 1798, Ellis was appointed as one of the two assistants in the Bodleian Library. He took the degree of B.C.L. in 1802. He was a Fellow of St John's till 1805. In 1800 he was appointed a temporary assistant in the library of the British Museum, and in 1805 he became assistant-keeper of printed books under William Beloe. Ellis moved to the manuscripts department in 1812, accepted the office of secretary to the museum in 1814, and in the same year became secretary to the Society of Antiquaries of London. Ellis became Principal Librarian in 1827. He was knighted in 1833.

Sir John Bowring was born in Exeter. His father was a wool merchant to China. As a young man he travelled extensively, becoming a partner in his father's company in 1818, selling herrings to Spain and France. He became editor of the Westminster Review in 1825 advocating free trade, parliamentary reform and popular schooling. In 1832 he was appointed to carry our investigations on accounting systems in the Netherlands and France to make recommendations to the British Government. In 1835 he became a MP and in 1845 became Chairman of the London and Blackwall Railway.

In 1849 Bowring was appointed British Consul at Canton (Guangzhou) and superintendent of trade in China. From 1852 to 1853, he acted as Britain's Plenipotentiary and Superintendent of Trade and Governor of Hong Kong in the absence on leave of Sir George Bonham. Bowring was instrumental in the formation in 1855 of the Board of Inspectors established under the Qing Customs House.

The newly knighted Bowring received his appointment as Governor of Hong Kong and her Majesty's Plenipotentiary and Chief Superintendent of British Trade in China on 10 January 1854. He arrived in Hong Kong and was sworn in on 13 April 1854, in the midst of the Taiping Rebellion, remaining in Hong Kong until 1858.

John Fisher Turner was born in 1881, the son of a barrister. He was educated at Rugby and the Royal Marine Academy at Woolwich before being commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1900. He served in the North-west Frontier in 1908 and became the Chief Engineer of the Royal Air Force, India, from 1928-1931. He is remembered for his ingenuity in designing decoy sites in Britain during World War II. He died on 21 May 1958. He never married.

Sir Joseph Banks was born on 15th February 1743 in London into a wealthy land-owning family. He was educated at Harrow School and Eton College, where he became interested in botany. Between 1760 and 1763, Banks studied at Christ Church, Oxford, inheriting a considerable fortune after the death of his father in 1761. This wealth funded his travel to collect botanical specimens.

In 1772, Banks became Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society from 1766 and its president from 1778 until his death in 1820. He was created a baronet in 1781 and appointed to the Order of the Bath in 1795. He died on 19th June 1820 in London.

Joseph Dalton Hooker, was born in Halesworth, Sussex, the second son of the botanist William Jackson Hooker. From the age of seven Hooker attended his father's lectures at Glasgow University. He was educated at Glasgow High school before studying medicine at Glasgow University. He graduated in 1839, entered the Naval Medical Service and joined polar explorer Captain James Clark Ross's Antarctic expedition to the South Magnetic Pole (1839-1843) after receiving a commission as Assistant-Surgeon on HMS Erebus. in 1845 he took up the position of botanist to the Geological Survey of Great Britain. He travelled to India and the Himalaya from 1847-1851. It is from this period that much of the correspondence in the archive belongs. He stayed with Hodgson during this period and would send him letters whilst he was travelling with Archibald Campbell (see BHH/3/1).

Hooker continued to travel including Palestine in 1860, Morocco in 1871 and the west of the United States in 1877.

In 1855 Hooker was appointed Assistant Director of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew and he succeeded his father as Director in 1865. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society and served as its President from 1873-1877.

Hooker married Frances Harriet Henslow in 1851 and they had four sons and three daughters, one of whom was named Brian Harvey Hodgson Hooker. Frances died in 1874 and Hooker remarried in 1876, Lady Hyacinth Jardine, and they had two sons. Hooker died at home in Berkshire on 10 December 1911 and was buried alongside his father at St. Anne's Church, Kew.

Michael Cavanagh Gillett was born on 12 July 1907. He joined the Consular Service serving in China from 1929-1953 being stationed at Peking, Canton, Hankow, Nanking, Kashgar, Tengyueh, Chungking and Shanghai. He also served in Los Angeles 1954-1957, and Afghanistan 1957-1963. He was awarded a CMG in 1951 and KBE in 1962. He contributed articles to the Journal of Royal Asiatic Society (North China Branch). He retired in 1963 and died on 20 January 1971.

Monier Monier-Williams was the second Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford University, England. He studied, documented and taught Asian languages, especially Sanskrit, Persian and Hindustani. He was born in Mumbai, but educated in England. He taught at the East India Company College from 1844 until 1858. In 1860 he stood against Max Müller, and was appointed, for the position of Boden Chair of Sanskrit at Oxford University after the death of Horace Hayman Wilson. He was knighted in 1876.

Sir Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff GCSI CIE PC FRS (21 February 1829 – 12 January 1906), known as M. E. Grant Duff before 1887 and as Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff thereafter, was a Scottish politician, administrator and author. He served as the Under-Secretary of State for India from 1868 to 1874, Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1880 to 1881 and the Governor of Madras from 1881 to 1886.

Ralph Lilley Turner was born in London in 1888, and educated in London and at Christ's College, Cambridge. In 1913, he joined the Indian Educational Service as a lecturer at Queen's College, Benares. From 1915 to 1919, he served with the 2nd battalion, 3rd Queen Alexandra's Own Gurkha Rifles in the British Indian Army during World War I, winning the Military Cross in Palestine. From 1920 to 1922, he was Professor of Indian Linguistics at Benares Hindu University.

In 1922, Turner returned to England as Professor of Sanskrit at the School of Oriental Studies at the University of London. Between 1924 and 1932, he also published several papers on Romani Studies in the Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, including "On the position of Romani in Indo-Aryan" (1927). He was Director of the school from 1937 to 1957, although he continued to occupy his Chair as well until 1954. He was knighted in 1950. His magnum opus, the Comparative Dictionary of the Indo-Aryan languages was published in 1966.