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Edward William West was born in 1824 and was educated at Kings College, London. He was a scholar of Zoroastrianism and translator of Pahlavi texts. He worked in India from 1844 for twenty years, as a civil engineer. In this time he became interested in the study of the Zoroastrian religion and undertook study to be able to understand its languages. He prepared five volumes of Pahlavi texts (the Marvels of Zoroastrianism) for Professor Max Müller's Sacred Books of the East series, published from the years 1880 to 1897. He was made an Honorary Doctor of Philosophy by the University of Munchen.

Muir was born in Glasgow in 1819. His father died in 1820, when his mother moved the family to Kilmarnock. He attended Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities but before graduating his uncle secured a writership for Muir with the East India Company. He attended Haileybury before departing for India in 1837. Muir was stationed in the North West Provinces where he met and married his wife, Elizabeth, in 1840. By 1847 he was secretary to board of revenue of the North West Provinces based in Agra. In 1852 he became secretary to the Lt. Governor, James Thompson. He developed an interest in Islam Studies. He also learnt Persian and Arabic, and it was for this that he received the Gold Medal in 1903.

In 1867 he was created a Knight Commander of the Star of India, and in 1868 he became lieutenant-governor of the North-West Provinces. Muir himself founded Muir Central College in 1873. In 1887, this became the University of Allahabad. Muir served from 1874 until 1876 as financial member of the Governor-General's Council. He retired in 1876, when he became a member of the Council of India in London.

In 1885 he was elected principal of Edinburgh University. In 1884, Muir was elected President of the Royal Asiatic Society, also serving as Vice-President from 1885-1886, and 1894-1897.

His chief books are A Life of Mahomet and History of Islam to the Era of the Hegira; Annals of the Early Caliphate; The Caliphate: Its rise, decline and fall, an abridgment and continuation of the Annals, which brings the record down to the fall of the caliphate on the onset of the Mongols; The Koran: its Composition and Teaching; and The Mohammedan Controversy, a reprint of five essays published at intervals between 1885 and 1887.

George Uglow Pope was born in Canada in 1820. He returned with this family to England in 1826 and trained as a missionary leaving for southern India in 1839. He was ordained in the Church of England in 1841. He left for England in 1849 but returned to Tanjore in 1851. He was much involved in education. He finally left India in 1881 and settled in Oxford where he made a mark as a lecturer in Tamil and Telugu (1884). He received an honorary MA in 1886 and the Gold Medal of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1906. He died in Oxford in 1908.

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.

Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson were twin sisters born in 1843. Between them they knew more than a dozen languages. Agnes's discovery of the Syriac Sinaiticus, on one of her many journeys to Sinai, was the most important manuscript find since that of the Codex Sinaiticus in 1859 and they made a significant contribution to Syriac and Arabic studies in their cataloguing of the Arabic and Syriac manuscripts at Saint Catherine's Monastery. They travelled much in Europe and in the Middle East until the start of the First World War and they collected about 1700 manuscript fragments, now known as the Lewis-Gibson collection. Margaret died in 1920 and Agnes in 1926.

Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson were twin sisters born in 1843. Between them they knew more than a dozen languages. Agnes's discovery of the Syriac Sinaiticus, on one of her many journeys to Sinai, was the most important manuscript find since that of the Codex Sinaiticus in 1859 and they made a significant contribution to Syriac and Arabic studies in their cataloguing of the Arabic and Syriac manuscripts at Saint Catherine's Monastery. They travelled much in Europe and in the Middle East until the start of the First World War and they collected about 1700 manuscript fragments, now known as the Lewis-Gibson collection. Margaret died in 1920 and Agnes in 1926.

Vincent Arthur Smith was born in Dublin in 1848. He passed the Indian Civil Services examinations in 1871 and was appointed to what would become the United Provinces in India. Between 1871–1900 he served in a variety of magisterial and executive positions including terms as district and sessions judge, eventually retiring as commissioner in July 1900. He published articles and books on the history of India, Indian numismatics and archaeology. By 1910 Smith was settled in Oxford where he joined St. John's College and was appointed a Curator of the Indian Institute. He died in Oxford in 1920.

Herbert Allen Giles was born in 1845. he studied at Charterhouse before becoming a British diplomat to China, serving from 1867-1892. He modified a Mandarin Chinese romanisation system established by Thomas Wade, resulting in the widely known Wade–Giles Chinese romanisation system. On returning to England he was appointed the second professor of Chinese language at the University of Cambridge, succeeding Thomas Wade in 1897. He translated many Chinese works. Giles retired in 1932, and subsequently died in 1935.

Archibald Henry Sayce was born in Bristol in 1845. He was privately tutored before attending Queen's College, Oxford, becoming a fellow in 1869. His interests were in Assyriology and he became a pioneer in its studies, publishing many articles and undertaking translations of cuneiform inscriptions. Sayce held a chair as Professor of Assyriology at the University of Oxford from 1891 to 1919.