C. F. Andrews was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1897. In 1904, Andrews went to Delhi as a missionary to take up a post at St Stephen's College where he soon became Principal. He supported the appointment of S. K. Rudra as Principal of St Stephen's College in 1907, the first Indian Principal. In 1912, Andrews returned to England and met Rabindranath Tagore at William Rothenstein's house in London. This began a friendship that led Andrews to base himself in Santiniketan from 1914, having renounced his priesthood in the same year. Andrews was involved in the editing of various Tagore publications and acted as his representative to the publisher Macmillan. Before this, in 1914, Andrews went to South Africa and met Mohandas Gandhi. They too became close friends.

Andrews became involved with the Indian National Congress and travelled the world to investigate the conditions of Indians in places such as Fiji, Kenya and Guiana. In 1931, he accompanied Gandhi to the Second Round Table Conference in London. He wrote a number of books on India, Gandhi and Christ. Andrews returned to the Anglican Church in 1936. The royalties from his autobiography, What I Owe to Christ (1932), were donated to Tagore's ashram in Santiniketan.

Jaipal Singh was the son of a Bihari adivasi (tribal) farmer. He studied at St Paul's School in Ranchi (Bihar) and was taken under the wing of the Principal, Canon Cosgrave. He was baptized and in November 1918 accompanied Canon Cosgrave back to England - the Canon having retired from the Ranchi school to take up the parish of Darlington. Jaipal Singh arrived in England in the aftermaths of the First World War and initially stayed in Darlington with the Canon. Three wealthy unmarried women, the Forsters, helped to take care of Jaipal Singh financially. He was sent to St Augustine's College in Canterbury to train for the priesthood, but after two terms, Bishop Arthur Mesacknight, the warden, sent him to Oxford - using his connections with Dr James, the president of St John's College.

Jaipal Singh matriculated at St John's College, Oxford, in Michaelmas 1922. He was awarded the Hertfordshire Scholarship of forty pounds by Bishop Knight and the Forsters bore most of the rest of his Oxford bills. Jaipal Singh studied PPE and was awarded a 4th in 1926. He was elected Secretary in 1924 and then President in 1925 of the St John's College Debating Society. He was a member of the Essay Society, a member of the college football XI in 1925-6, and the college hockey XI throughout his time at the college. Jaipal Singh also represented the University Hockey XI in Varsity matches from 1924 to 1926 and hence was awarded a hockey Blue. Jaipal Singh started the Oxford Hermits - a sports society for 'Asiatics' in Oxford - they mainly played hockey. Jaipal Singh then took the Indian Civil Service (ICS) exams, and was a probationary student at St John's.

In the meantime, Singh was involved in Indian students' hockey tours of Europe and the formation of the India Hockey Federation. In 1928, he captained the India Hockey Team at the Amsterdam Olympics. They won all their games without conceding a goal, and were awarded the gold medal. He often frequented Veeraswamy's restaurant in Regent Street and the victorious team were also feted at the restaurant and at 21 Cromwell Road.

Having taken part in the Olympics, Singh's ICS training was delayed and he then decided to quit the ICS. Through the Darlington MP, Lord Pake Pense, Singh was introduced to Viscount Bearstead, Chairman of Shell Transport and Trading Company who arranged for a job for Singh with the Burnham-Shell Oil Storage and Distributing Company of India. He was the first Indian to be appointed to a covenanted mercantile assistant in Royal Dutch Shell group, and after a probationary period in London was sent to Calcutta. In Calcutta, Singh met many British officials, clergymen and Indians through his contacts from his time in Britain. He met and married Tara Majumdar, the daughter of P. K. and Agnes Majumdar and grand-daughter of W. C. Bonnerjee. Singh took up a number of educational posts, including a position teaching commerce at Achimota College, Gold Coast, and then soon got involved in politics back in India. Singh presided over the All-India Adibasi Mahasabha, an organization that campaigned for tribal rights. After Indian independence the party became the Jharkand Party and saw their aims realized in 2000 when Jharkand was designated a separate state from Bihar.  

Joseph Salter was a missionary based in the East End of London who focused his energies on 'Asiatics'. He worked for the London City Mission. Salter was the first and resident missionary at the Strangers' Home for Asiatics, Asians and South Sea Islanders, founded in 1857. The Maharaja Duleep Singh was one of the main benefactors for the Home. Salter wrote two books about his work with ex-lascars and other immigrants through this Home and his work in the area. He dedicated his first book to Duleep Singh. Salter gave various ethnographic sketches of the different people he met through his missionary work. He met Indians from the upper classes as well working class. He studied Hindi with the valet of Meer Jafur, the son of a courtier to the Gaekwad of Baroda, in order to evangelize to London-based Indians. Salter also helped establish the Ayahs' Home in Aldgate.

E. B. Bhose was a missionary in charge of lascars in Britain. He was originally from Bengal and had worked with coolies in the West Indies before arriving in Britain. He was part of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.

In 1887, Bhose was appointed chaplain at St Luke's Lascar Mission in Victoria Docks. His mission room was also used as a Sunday school and a club room for leisure activities. Bhose visited lascars on the ships. He wrote regular mission reports which noted the observance of Muslim festivals by lascars in the ports. He died in 1905.

Pandita Ramabai was born in 1858 and orphaned in the famine of 1876-7. She came from a Marathi Brahmin family and was married in 1880 to a Brahmo Samajist, Bipin Behari Das Medhavi. He died nineteen months later, leaving her widowed with a baby daughter. Ramabai lectured on Sanskrit and the position of women in India and hence the title 'Pandita' was conferred onto her. Dr W. W. Hunter admired her work and spoke of her in lectures in Edinburgh, making her known in Britain. Ramabai was considering converting to Christianity and so the Society of St John the Evangelist at Poona made arrangements for her to go to England to answer her questions about the Christian faith.

In 1883, Ramabai arrived in Wantage to stay with the community of St Mary the Virgin. She also intended to study medicine. In September 1883, Ramabai and her daughter, Manorana, were baptized at Wantage. In 1884, Ramabai went to teach Sanskrit to women intending to become missionaries in India at Cheltenham Ladies' College, where she stayed until 1886. She then travelled to America and returned to India.

In March 1889, Ramabai opened a school in Bombay for women, and especially for widows. She received financial support from the Ramabai Association in America and from friends in England such as Dorothea Beale. In 1897, her daughter, Manorana, returned to Wantage to study medicine. Meanwhile, Ramabai moved her school to land she bought near Poona, now Pune. This place was known as Mukti Mission. Mukti was largely self-supporting with nearly 2000 people living there and with American and European helpers. Ramabai publicized the plight of the Hindu widow but also campaigned for Hindi to be the national language of India. Manorana died in 1921 and Ramabai died a year later in 1922.

Born in 1824, Madhusudan Dutt was the son of a lawyer. In 1830, he moved to Calcutta and later studied at Hindu College where he began to write poetry in English and Bengali. In 1842, his poems began to be published in literary magazines in India. He sent some to the editors of Blackwood's Magazine and Bentley's Miscellany in Britain but they were not published. He greatly admired Wordsworth, Byron and Shelley and had a fierce ambition to visit England. Dutt began to consider conversion to Christianity when his father proposed an arranged marriage to a Hindu girl. In 1843, Dutt ran away from home and was baptised. He moved to Madras and married an orphan called Rebecca.

Having returned to Calcutta, Dutt published the epic historical poem Meghnad-Badh-Kabya in Bengali, for which he is most famous. Having found little success in his poetry written in English, Dutt's works in Bengali were more favourably received. Dutt's Bengali poetry and plays influenced and encouraged others like Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and later Rabindranath Tagore.

He still had a strong desire to go to Britain and so raised enough money to leave in 1862. Initially he stayed with Manomohun Ghose and Satyendranath Tagore in London and was admitted to Gray's Inn. His second wife, Henrietta, and children joined him in 1863. Beset by financial difficulties and facing racial prejudice, they moved to Versailles. Dutt continued to return to London to attend the Bar dinners and lived in Shepherds Bush for a while. He was called to the Bar on 17 November 1866. Dutt sailed back to India in 1867 and tried to pursue a legal career. He died in 1873.

Cornelia Sorabji was an Indian Parsee Christian who is seen as India’s first female barrister although she was never technically called to the English Bar. She studied for a law degree at Somerville College, Oxford, (1889-93), the first woman to sit the law exams in the country. Despite standing first in university examinations at the Deccan College, Sorabji was not eligible for the Government of India scholarship to study in England. She studied in Britain with the help of funds raised by her British friends the Hobhouses.

When Sorabji first arrived in England she stayed with Elizabeth Adelaide Manning, Secretary of the National Indian Association. Sorabji had met Manning on her visit to India in January of that year. At Oxford, Sorabji developed an enduring friendship with the Master of Baliol College, Benjamin Jowett. This granted her access to members of the upper-classes of British society, and consequently she remained loyal to the British through her career. Sorabji's memoir, India Calling, recalls the number of prominent establishment figures Sorabji met during her time in Britain. Sorabji became a member of Lincoln’s Inn in 1922, having been barred as a woman when a student. Her career was dedicated to the cause of the ‘purdahnashins’ (secluded women) in India. In 1929 upon retirement, Cornelia Sorabji settled in England. She died in her home in Finsbury Park in 1954.