Robert Bridges was born in Walmer, Kent, to father John Thomas Bridges and mother Harriet Elizabeth Affleck. He entered Eton College in 1854 and started writing poetry, and enrolled at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in the Michaelmas term of 1863. In 1872 he joined the Savile Club where he got to know Edmund William Gosse.

In 1884, Bridges married Monica Waterhouse, who was a cousin of Roger Fry. Through this marriage, Bridges was introduced to a younger generation of writers who included W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, Robert Graves, Virginia Woolf and E. M. Forster. In 1912, William Rothenstein introduced Bridges to Rabindranath Tagore, whom he met again in Oxford in 1913. Tagore had won the Nobel Prize for Gitanjali in 1913 and Bridges wanted to include excerpts from it in his anthology, The Spirit of Man (1915). Gitanjali had been introduced to the British public by W. B. Yeats in 1912. Yeats and Rothenstein were to play an instrumental role in the communication between Tagore and Bridges. The controversy surrounding Tagore's inclusion in Bridges' anthology stems from Bridges' desire to refine the English of one of the Gitanjali poems. But Tagore refused and it was only the intervention of Yeats, at Bridges' request, that persuaded Tagore to let Bridges make the changes. Bridges only met Tagore on very few occasions; otherwise their relationship was entirely through correspondence and mutual friends.

One of those mutual friends was Hasan Shahid Suhrawardy, a student at Oxford, who assisted Bridges in choosing 'Oriental' poems for his anthology. In a letter to Bridges dated 8 July 1914, Tagore mentions his affection for Suhrawardy: 'I am glad you speak so well of Suhrawardy for whom I felt a very great attraction when I came to know him in Oxford, and the memory of my meeting with him still gives me pleasure.'

Basanta Kumar Mallik enrolled at Oxford in 1912 and soon became a frequent guest at Bridges' Boar's Hill home, where also W. B. Yeats was a frequent visitor.

In 1913, Bridges was made poet laureate and he remained a best selling poet throughout the 1920s. He died at his home on 21 April 1930. 

Ernest Rhys was a writer and literary editor. He founded and edited the Everyman's Library for J. M. Dent & Sons. He was also a poet and one of the founding members of the 'Rhymers' Club' in London in 1890.

In 1912 or 1913, he went to see a play written by Rabindranath Tagore at the Little Theatre at the Albert Hall, having been given the ticket by a young Bengali student in London. It was there in the audience that he first saw Tagore. Tagore then became a regular visitor to Rhys' home in Hampstead and became friends with Ernest and his wife, Grace. In 1913, Rhys helped Tagore revise Sadhana for publication and in 1936 he anonymously edited Tagore's Collected Poems and Plays. Rhys wrote a biography of Tagore for Macmillan in 1915.

Edward John Thompson was a historian, novelist and translator. He was an ordained Wesleyan (although he later resigned his ordination) and in 1910 he went to Bankura Wesleyan College in Bengal to teach English literature. In Bengal he became acquainted with Rabindranath Tagore, and was present in Santiniketan when Tagore heard that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. The relationship between the poet and Thompson was often marked by tension and misunderstanding.

In 1923, Thompson settled in Oxford and taught Bengali to ICS probationers. He translated works from Bengali to English, and was involved with the India Society. In 1922 he wrote the introduction to a collection of short stories by Sita and Santa Chatterjee, entitled Tales of Bengal. He became a Leverhulme Research Fellow (1934–6), and Honorary Fellow and Research Fellow in Indian history at Oriel College (1936–40). He maintained contact and correspondence with many Indians, and also formed friendships with Indian students at Oxford and other Indian visitors to the UK. The Rhodes Trust funded several visits to India by Thompson in the 1930s and it was he who suggested that the Trust provide grants and prizes for Indian writers (although these plans did not come to fruition).

Thompson was a friend to Indian politicians, including those who visited the UK for the Round Table Conferences in the 1930s. Thompson had been involved in the suggestion of inviting Jawaharlal Nehru as Rhodes Visiting Lecturer to Oxford in 1940, but Viceroy Linlithgrow advised against this visit. Thompson had close contact with other Congress leaders such as M. K. Gandhi. He died in April 1946 before he could see independence realized for the subcontinent. 

Mukul Dey was an artist, who specialized in dry-point etching. He studied at Rabindranath Tagore's school at Santiniketan. From 1911, his paintings appeared in monthly magazines in Calcutta and then in 1913-14, the Indian Society of Oriental Art sent his paintings to Paris, London and other European cities for exhibition with the works of other students of Abanindranath Tagore. W. W. Pearson inspired Dey to work with dry point by giving him copper plates to scratch with a steel pointed needle and then sent these plates to London to be printed. In 1916, Dey accompanied Rabindranath Tagore on his tour of Japan and the USA. In 1919, Dey went to the Ajanta and Bagh caves; his experiences were published in My Pilgrimages to Ajanta and Bagh.

In 1920, Dey went to London, and was received by his old friend W. W. Pearson. Dey worked in Muirhead Bone's studio until he joined the Slade School of Art in London. In his holidays he worked in the King Alfred co-educational school in North London. In 1922, Dey was the first Indian to receive the Diploma in Mural Painting from Royal College of Art. Dey regularly exhibited in London, and met many prominent British figures in the art and literary world such as Thomas Sturge Moore, Edwin Lutyens, Laurence Binyon and Selwyn Image. His work was exhibited in the Royal Academy in London in 1923 and he decorated a portion of the Indian Pavilion at the Wembley British Empire Exhibition in 1924.

In 1927, Dey returned to India. In 1928, he became the first Indian Principal of the Government School of Art and Craft in Calcutta, and remained in that post until 1943. He continued to tour his work and remain an influential figure in India until his death in 1989.

Havell was Principal of the Madras School of Industrial Arts from 1884 to 1892 and Principal of the Calcutta School of Art and Keeper of the Government Art Gallery from 1896 until 1906. In Calcutta, Havell worked with Abanindranath Tagore, nephew of Rabindranath Tagore, in developing a Bengal School of Art by reforming the art education at the Calcutta School of Art to gain inspiration from Mughal art rather than western methods.

In February 1910, Havell gave a lecture in London to the Royal Society of Arts on Indian Art, to which the Chair, George Birdwood, responded that India had no fine art tradition. Partly as a response to this, Havell was instrumental in founding the India Society - he convened a meeting at his house in March 1910 where the idea of the Society was concretized. The India Society was formed to bring attention to Indian Art in Britain and the West. The Society organized lectures, exhibitions and produced publications on Indian Art, including Havell's 1920 publication of a Handbook of Indian Art.

Havell was also appointed to the Indian Section Committee of the Festival of Empire held at Crystal Palace in 1911. From 1916 to 1923 Havell was a member of the British legation in Copenhagen. He died on 30 December 1934 at the Acland Nursing Home, Oxford.

Iseult Gonne was the daughter of the Irish nationalist, Maud Gonne. As an illegitimate daughter who lived in France, it was not until the divorce case between Maud Gonne and John MacBride took place in 1905-6 that her existence became known to the wider public. W. B. Yeats, Maud Gonne's lifelong admirer, knew of Iseult's existence from 1898 and became a close part of her life. Yeats proposed to Maud Gonne in July 1916 and then Iseult soon after. He was rejected by both. Maud and Iseult Gonne were both the subjects of a number of poems written by Yeats.

In 1913, Iseult met Rabindranath Tagore. Inspired by his poetry, she began to learn Bengali in 1914. She was tutored by Devabrata Mukerjea, with whom she also had an affair. Together, in France, they translated some of Tagore's The Gardener into French directly from the Bengali. Tagore left it to Yeats' discretion to decide the merit of the work, but Yeats did not feel sufficiently bilingual in French to judge them. The translations were never published. Iseult attracted a number of other men, including Ezra Pound. In 1920, she married Francis Stuart, a poet of Ulster descent. When Maud Gonne died in 1953, Iseult was not acknowledged as her mother's daughter in her will. Iseult died a year later.

Born in 1887, Sukumar Ray was the father of the famous Indian film director, Satyajit Ray. Sukumar's father, Upendrakisore, had set up his own printing press in his house in Calcutta and wrote a number of articles on printing for the British printing journal, The Penrose Annual, from 1897 to 1912.

Sukumar Ray arrived in England in the autumn of 1911 and initially lodged with the Northbrook Society at 21 Cromwell Road. He studied printing at the London School of Photo Engraving and Lithography in Bolt Street, run by London County Council, and then went to Manchester and studied at the Manchester School of Technology. In Manchester, he wrote letters to his parents from 12 Thorncliffe Grove and then 65 Ducie Grove. Ray was present in London when Rabindranath Tagore visited the city in 1912; Tagore was a friend of his father's in Calcutta. He often visited the house of Dr and Mrs P. K. Ray in London to eat Indian food and meet other Indians in London. At P. K. Ray's house, Sukumar Ray met K. G. Gupta and later married his niece.

Ray met E. B. Havell in London, whom he had known as Principal of the Calcutta School of Art, and visited Rothenstein's house. Rothenstein suggested to Ray that he make colour reproductions of the Ajanta caves and Indian architecture, influenced by his preoccupations with the India Society. Ray was good friends with Rathindranath, the son of Rabindranath Tagore.

Sukumar Ray was made a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society in 1922. He was famous for his humourous 'literary nonsense' and was also a story-writer and illustrator.  

First Indian to enter the Indian Civil Service (ICS) through the competitive exams in London. Elder brother of Rabindranath Tagore (second son of Debendranath Tagore). Posted to the Bombay ICS, where he served his entire career from 1864 to 1897. His wife is said to have introduced/adapted the use of wearing a blouse with a sari for Bengali women.

Bhabani Bhattacharya was born in Bihar to Bengali parents. In 1927 he graduated with a degree in English literature from Patna University. In 1928 Bhattacharya moved to England to continue his studies. His initial intention was to continue studying English literature at King’s College, London. However after an acrimonious encounter with one of his professors he decided on a degree in history instead. While studying for his degree at the University of London, Bhattacharya was taught by the political philosopher and author Harold Laski who would be, along with Tagore and Gandhi, a lasting influence on his writing.

During his time in London, Bhattacharya became closely associated with Marxist groups and an active member of the League Against Imperialism. While in London, Bhattacharya contributed to a number of journals and newspapers. He published in The Bookman, the Manchester Guardian and the Spectator, which at the time was edited by author of the bestselling Lives of a Bengal Lancer, Francis Yeats-Brown, who would become a close friend. Both he and Tagore urged Bhattacharya to use English as a medium of expression for his fiction, rather than Bengali. In 1930 Bhattacharya translated Tagore’s The Golden Boat to wide acclaim. He graduated from the University of London with a degree in history in 1931, returning for his PhD, which he received in 1934. From 1932 to 1933 he travelled widely through Europe, including Berlin, Budapest, Warsaw, Paris and Vienna.

Bhattacharya returned to India in December 1934 and settled in Calcutta. He married Salil Mukherji in 1935. In 1949 he moved to Washington as Press Attaché for the Indian Embassy. In 1947, So Many Hungers was published. Music for Mohini, one of his most acclaimed novels, was published in 1952 and Shadow from Ladakh, which received the Sahitya Akademi Award (India’s highest literary award), in 1966. His novels were translated into twenty-eight languages. In 1969 he left India to become Visiting Professor at the University of Hawai’i. In 1972 he moved permanently to the US. He died of a heart attack in 1988.