A Theosophist of Australian origin and editor of the short-lived journal for the Britain and India Association in 1920 called Britain and India. Ransom acted as Honorary Secretary for the Britain and India Association - her Assistant Secretary was Mrs O. Stevenson Howell, and the Honorary Treasurer was E. L. Gardner.

A. P. Sinnett was a prominent member of the Theosophical Society in London and India.

Annie Besant was a leading member of the Theosophical Society, a feminist and political activist, and a politician in India. She had a close relationship with Charles Bradlaugh, MP, a free-thinker who was often known as the 'Member for India'. Having declared herself an atheist, Annie Besant was drawn to other ideas of spiritualism and joined the Theosophical Society in 1889. She was very close to the co-founder, Madame Blavatsky, and allowed Blavatksy to live in her house in St John's Wood from 1889. In 1907, after the death of Colonel Olcott, Besant was made President of the Theosophical Society.

In 1911, Besant brought Jiddu Krishnamurti and his brother to England and acted as their guardian. She proclaimed in 1927 that Krishnamurti was the 'coming', i.e., messiah, and was devastated when he left the Theosophical Society in 1929.  

Besant also campaigned for the rights of Indians and for Indian 'home rule'. She launched the Home Rule League in 1916, modelling the Indian plight on that of Ireland. She was a member of the Fabian Society, owing to her close relationship with George Bernard Shaw. In 1917 she became the first woman president of the Indian National Congress at a session in Calcutta.

Mohini Chatterjee was an Indian Theosophist, who was sent to London in 1884 with Colonel Olcott. He was a favourite among Theosophical circles in London. Mohini Chatterjee visited Dublin in 1885 and was a deep influence on W. B. Yeats. Yeats wrote a poem entitled 'Mohini Chatterjee'.

In late 1885, Mohini Chatterjee was involved in scandal with female Theosophists. Letters from H. P. Blavatsky to the Sinnetts reveal her impression that European ladies were intent on seducing the Indian. The case came to public attention when one of the women, in response to Blavatsky's criticisms, intended to publicize letters written to her by Mohini Chatterjee. A truce between the woman and Blavatksy was arranged by 1887. 

Although he lost touch with Yeats and George Russell (AE) upon his return to India, they believed he was a lawyer in Bombay at the turn of the century. According to Harbans Rai Bachchan, the last heard of Mohini Chatterjee was that he was a blind old man, living in London with his daughter, in the early 1930s.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in Porbandar, Kanthiawar, India, to father Karamchand Uttamchand Gandhi and his fourth wife Putlibai. In 1882 he married Kasturbai Makanji, with whom he had five children. Gandhi enrolled at Samaldas College, Bhaunagar, in 1887 but left after one term. However, he was encouraged to go to London to study law and he left for London on 4 September 1888.

Arriving on 29 September 1888, Gandhi immediately went to the Victoria Hotel before relocating briefly to the suburb of Richmond and eventually settling in a room in West Kensington for a year. At first, he tried to become an 'English gentleman' but after a few months realized that he had to cut his expenditures and gave up most of his new habits. Besides his law studies he passed the University of London matriculation examination in June 1890. Gandhi did not participate in the newly established British Committee of the Indian National Congress but did attend meetings of the London Indian Society. He also attended meetings of the Anjuman-e-Islam (after 1903 called the Pan-Islamic Society), the National Indian Association, and the Northbrook Indian Society. He passed his Roman law examination in March 1890 and passed the Bar finals in January 1891. Before leaving for London, Gandhi had promised his mother not to eat meat. He found it difficult at first but soon discovered vegetarian restaurants and joined the London Vegetarian Society. He often wrote for their journal the Vegetarian and became a member of the Executive Committee on 19 September 1890. Gandhi had also come into contact with the Theosophical Society in 1889, and was introduced to Annie Besant before he left London on 12 June 1891.

He lived in India until 1893 when he left for South Africa to practice law. It was here he raised his family, established himself as a lawyer and then a political activist fighting the discrimination of Asians in Africa. By 1906, he had emerged as the spokesman of Indians in Natal and Transvaal and in October that year he was once again in London to speak on behalf of the Indian community. In London he met with Lord Elgin to discuss the rights of Indians in South Africa, but upon his return in December 1906, Gandhi was disappointed. Imperial politics brought Gandhi to London again in July 1909. However, what concerned Gandhi the most this time was the status of highly educated Indians. In August, he visited Louth with his friend Pranjivan Mehta; later in August he visited George Allen in the Cotswolds, and on 7 November he spoke to the Indian students at Cambridge.  On his voyage back to South Africa, he wrote his powerful book Hind Swaraj, or Indian Home Rule, in which he wrote about his increasing discontent with the West, the power of non-violence and the vision of self-rule.

Between 1909 and 1914, Gandhi received several invitations to return to India, but before doing so he visited London again in August 1914, two days after the outbreak of the First World War. The purpose of his trip was to visit his friend and mentor G. K. Gokhale but he had already left for Paris. With Gokhale gone, Gandhi met the poetess Sarojini Naidu instead. On 8 August, a reception was held for him at the Hotel Cecil. In attendance were, among others, Charlotte Despard, Albert Cartwright, Bhupendranath Basu, Sacchidanand Sinha, Lala Lajpat Rai, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Amir Ali and J. M. Parikh. While in London he established the Indian Volunteer Corps before he left on 19 December 1914.

From 1919 Gandhi became highly politically active in India. It was his belief in satyagraha that made him the leader of the nationalist movement against the Raj. By 1931 he had become integral to Indian national life and the sole representative of the Indian National Congress at the second Round Table Conference (Gandhi was in prison during the first Conference in 1930). He arrived in September 1931 and gave his first speech at the Conference on 15 September. The Second Round Table Conference failed to yield independence for India, and Gandhi left London on 5 December 1931. Back in India Gandhi continued to promote satyagraha and led the Quit India Movement in 1942. On 30 January 1948, Gandhi was walking through the grounds of Birla House, New Delhi, when he was shot at point blank range by Nathuram Godse.

Lady Emily Lutyens was the wife of the architect Edwin Landseer Lutyens and the mother of five children including Mary Lutyens. She joined the Theosophical Society in 1910 through the introduction of French friends, the Mallets. Drawn by the charisma of Annie Besant, Lutyens was on hand to welcome her back from a trip to India in 1911 with Krishnamurti and Nityananda. Emily Lutyens' two eldest children became friends with Krishnamurti and Nityananda and she saw a great deal of the two boys, taking on a mothering role which developed into an obsessive devotion to Krishnamurti as spiritual leader.

Lutyens, a strict vegetarian, was involved in the production of the Theosophical journal Herald of the Star, and was English representative of the Order of the Star in the East. Her devotion to Krishnamurti led Lutyens to follow him around the world, to Europe, India, Australia and the US. In 1916 Lutyens established an all-India Home Rule movement, holding meetings in her London drawing room. Meanwhile, her husband, Edwin Lutyens, was appointed to New Delhi to plan the new capital city, including the Viceroy's House. He also prepared the plans for a Theosophical Society building in Tavistock Square in 1911, which was requisitioned by the Government in 1920 and became the British Medical Association Headquarters. In 1930, Emily Lutyens followed Krishnamurti in resigning from Theosophy.

Nityananda (Nitya) was the younger brother of Krishnamurti, the Theosophist leader. He was 'discovered' along with his brother by C. W. Leadbeater in 1910 and brought to England in 1911 by Annie Besant for his education.

Nityananda passed the London Matriculation after WW1 and began to read for the Bar. He suffered from tuberculosis and died in 1925. Mary Lutyens, the daughter of Edwin and Emily, recalls her infatuation and crush on Nitya as a young girl.

Jiddu Krishnamurti was 'discovered' by C. W. Leadbeater near Madras in 1910 and taken under the wing of Annie Besant and the Theosophical Society, along with his younger brother, Nityananda. Besant and Leadbeater undertook to educate the two boys, and were involved in a protracted legal battle with their father, Naraniah, over custody. Besant took the boys to England in 1911 where they were met by a crowd of Theosophists at Charing Cross.

Having come to England to be educated, Krishnamurti was looked after by a number of Theosophists, including Emily Lutyens who developed a deep 'devotion' for him. The two brothers shared a love of fashion and motorcycles. They were tutored at various stages by C. Jinarajadasa and George Arundale. Krishnamurti failed all his exams for London University in 1919 (for the third time) and was then sent to Paris to study languages in January 1920 and returned to India in 1921. He then took on a more involved role in the Theosophical Society.

Leadbeater had proclaimed Krishnamurti to be head of the Order of the Star in the East in 1911 to prepare for the 'coming' of the incarnation of Lord Maitreya. Various publications were produced in Krishnamurti's name regarding Theosophical teachings, although the role of Krishnamurti in writing these is in dispute (i.e. At the Feet of the Master (1910) and the journal, Herald of the Star). Although Annie Besant proclaimed that the 'coming' had taken place in 1927, Krishnamurti dissolved the Order of the Star in 1929 and drew away from the Theosophical ideology (resigning from the Society in 1930), lecturing on his own brand of philosophy. He spent most of his time in Ojai, California, and died there in 1986.

C. Jinarajadasa was born of Buddhist parents in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in 1875. He was 'discovered' by Theosophist C. W. Leadbeater in 1889, who believed that Jinarajadasa was the reincarnation of his recently deceased younger brother, and brought him to England.

Jinarajadasa, known as 'Raja' to friends, graduated in 1900 from St John's College, Cambridge, where he coxed the college eight. He married the English feminist Dorothy Graham in 1916.

Jinarajadasa travelled the world lecturing on behalf of the Theosophical Society. He became President of the Theosophical Society in 1945, resigned in 1952, and died in the USA in 1953.