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. 

Humayun Kabir was a poet, novelist, educationist and politician. He was educated at Exeter College, Oxford and graduated in 1931. Kabir had been heavily involved with the Oxford Union during his student days, having been elected secretary in 1930 and librarian in 1931. He made his farewell speech on the motion: 'This House condemns the Indian policy of His Majesty's Government'. Kabir had also been involved with the student newspapers, the Isis and the Cherwell, and the Oxford Majlis journal, Bharat.

Upon his return to India, Kabir taught at a number of universities. He also became involved in trade union politics and was elected to the Bengal Legislative Assembly in 1937. He took up a number of government posts after 1947, including Minister for Education.

Kabir published a book of poems in Oxford in 1932, and continued to write poetry, short stories and novels after his return to India. He also wrote essays and was a well-respected orator. He died in Kolkata in 1969.

P. C. Ray was a chemist, a historian and sociologist of science and an industrial entrepreneur. Following education in Calcutta, he won a Gilchrist Scholarship to study in Britain in the 1880s. He was met in London by Jagadish Chandra Bose and Satyaranjan Das. A week later he went up to Edinburgh University, with letters of introduction to Edinburgh families provided by Elizabeth Manning.

Ray studied chemistry, physics and zoology for a BSc and was then awarded a DSc in inorganic chemistry in 1887. He was elected Vice-President of the University Chemical Society in 1887. Ray wished to apply for a position within the Indian Educational Service although the higher posts in education were all but closed off to Indians. He returned to India in 1888, and armed with various letters of recommendation tried to enter the service. He was unemployed for a year until he got a temporary teaching post in Calcutta.

P. C. Ray eventually set up the Bengal Chemical and Pharmaceutical Works in Calcutta, India's first pharmaceutical company. In 1904 he toured Europe and was given a warm reception by Indian students at Edinburgh. In 1912, the University of Durham conferred unto him an honorary DSc degree. Ray was awarded with the Companionship of the Indian Empire (CIE) in 1912 and a knighthood in 1919. In 1916 he took up a position at the University College of Science in Calcutta, where he remained until retirement.

Surendranath Banerjea was born in 1848 in Calcutta. From childhood, his father had planned to send Banerjea to England to complete his education, and on 3 March 1868, Banerjea set sail for England with Romesh Chunder Dutt and Behari Lal Gupta. All three had made the arrangements in secret - Banerjea's mother was not aware of his trip until the day before. At Southampton they were met by W. C. Bonnnerjee and taken to London.

All three competed in the Indian Civil Service open exams. Banerjea passed in 1869, but was disqualified over a mix-up over his age. Although Banerjea was 21 (the maximum age to compete for the ICS exam), his matriculation certificate has used the Indian measure of age (where someone is aged 1 from birth) and so the examiners believed he was 22. Banerjea took the matter to court and eventually won his case in 1870. During his time in London, Banerjea also attended classes at University College, London. He took his final exams in 1871 and returned to India in August 1871.

Banerjea was posted to Sylhet as an Assistant Magistrate but, not long after, was sacked over a clerical error. In 1874, Banerjea returned to London and became a student at the Middle Temple. However, because of his dismissal from the Civil Service, the benchers declined to call him to the Bar and he returned again to India in 1875. Banerjea took up a number of posts teaching English and became more politically active. In 1875, he formed the British Indian Association, which was seen as a prototype nationalist organization. He campaigned against the Ilbert Bill and became a member of the Indian National Congress soon after its formation in 1885. He was vocal in opposition to the partition of Bengal in 1905. In 1879, he became the proprieter and editor of The Bengalee.

In 1909, Banerjea visited London again to attend the Imperial Press Conference. He was in the city when Madan Lal Dhingra assassinated Curzon-Wyllie. Banerjea sent an open letter condemning Dhingra's actions to the press. Banerjea became more moderate in his political sensibilities as time progressed. He left Congress following the 1919 Montagu-Chelmsford reforms because he supported the reforms as opposed to Gandhi's non-cooperation. He accepted a knighthood from the British in 1919.

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.

Toru Dutt was born into the well known Dutt family of Rambagan. Many of her uncles and cousins as well as her father, Govin Chunder Dutt, published poetry and prose. Her education and upbringing were rather unusual for even progressive mid-nineteenth century Bengal. Toru Dutt’s family had converted to Christianity, which in some ways led to a feeling of social alienation for the Dutt family in India. In 1869, a few years after the death of their elder brother Abju, Govin Chunder Dutt took his wife and two young daughters Aru and Toru to travel in Europe. They spent a few months in Nice where both sisters attended a French Pension and learnt French. In 1870 the family travelled to Brompton, England via Boulogne.  It was unusual for Indian women of the time to travel abroad and also to gain an education abroad. 

In England both sisters continued their French Studies. While living in Cambridge between 1871-3 they attended the Higher Lectures for Women at the University. Toru Dutt met and befriended Mary Martin, the daughter of Reverend John Martin of Sidney Sussex College. The friendship that developed between the two girls at this time continued in their correspondence after Toru’s return to India, until the time of Toru’s death.  Toru Dutt seemed to have acquired a good set of acquaintances whilst attending the lectures at Cambridge as she mentions quite a few names in her correspondence with Mary Martin after her return to India.  Amongst these names are Mr and Mrs Baker, the proprietors of Regent House where the Dutt family lodged in Cambridge; the son, Reginald, and daughters of Rev H. Hall of St Paul’s Church, Cambridge; Mr Clifford who later comes to officiate at the church near the Dutt’s Garden House outside Calcutta, and Sir Richard Claverhouse Jebb who was then Professor of Greek at Trinity.  

A collection of Toru Dutt’s correspondence includes her letters written from England to her cousins in India. Toru Dutt was a natural linguist and in her short life became proficient in Bengali, English, French and, later on, Sanskrit.  Although she died at an exceptionally early age she left behind an impressive collection of prose and poetry.  Her two novels, the unfinished  Bianca or The Young Spanish Maiden written in English and Le Journal de Mademoiselle d’Arvers, written in French, were interestingly based outside India with non-Indian protagonists.  Her poetry comprises of A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields consisting of her translations into English of French poetry, and Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan which compiles her translations and adaptations from Sanskrit literature.

A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields was published in 1876 by the Saptahik Sambad Press, Bhowanipore without any preface or introduction.  At first this collection attracted little attention but later it famously fell into the hands of Edmund Gosse who gave it a splendid review in The Examiner of August 1876.  When her collection of Sanskrit translations Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan was published posthumously in 1882 Edmund Gosse wrote an introductory memoir for it.  In this he wrote of Toru: ‘She brought with her from Europe a store of knowledge that would have sufficed to make an English or French girl seem learned, but which in her case was simply miraculous’ (Gosse, p xiii).

Keshub Chunder Sen was a Brahmo Samaj reformer. He visited Britain for six months in 1870. During this trip, Sen toured Britain to deliver sermons and met with a variety of political leaders, including W. E. Gladstone. Sen met Queen Victoria, who later presented him with two books.

On a visit to Bristol. Sen stayed at the house of Mary Carpenter. It was during this meeting that they decided to form the National Indian Association in aid of Social Progress, which was run by Carpenter in Britain.

Upon his return to India, Sen was involved in controversy when he arranged the marriage of his daughter (Sunity Devee) to the son of the Maharaja of Cooch Behar, despite the fact that she was only thirteen years old and violated the reforms that he and the Brahmo Samaj had been campaigning for.