Francis Younghusband was a member of the British Indian Army. He was an explorer of the Gobi Desert and Manchuria. In 1903, Younghusband led a mission to Tibet. In 1906, he became British Resident in Kashmir.

Younghusband returned to Britain in 1909 and became involved and interested in religious/spiritual matters. He was a member of the India Society and became friends with many Indians in Britain. In 1933 he attended the Second Parliament of Religions in Chicago. He then became involved in the organization and leadership of the World Fellowship of Faith's congress in London, to be held in 1936. Subsequent congresses were held in places such as Oxford in 1937, Cambridge in 1938, Paris in 1939, in which Younghusband continued to take a leading role.

Younghusband wrote twenty-six books between 1895 and 1942 on topics ranging from exploration and mountaineering to philosophy and politics.

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.

E. J. Beck was Honorary Secretary of the National Indian Association from 1905. She was the younger sister of Theodore Beck, Principal of the Mahomedan Anglo-Oriental College in Aligarh, and lived in India with him when he was Principal. After his death, she returned to London and became involved in the National Indian Association. On the death of E. A. Manning in 1905, Miss Beck became Honorary Secretary. She did not however edit its organ, The Indian Magazine and Review, for long, and employed Miss A. A. Smith to take on editorial duties. Beck was present at the NIA event at the Imperial Institute at which Madan Lal Dhingra assassinated Sir Curzon-Wyllie and was called as a witness to Dhingra's trial. She retired in 1932 and The Indian Magazine and Review stopped printing.

She died in Allahabad on 1 January 1936 while on a tour of India to visit friends. Cornelia Sorabji was in Allahabad at the time and recounted the last days of Miss Beck for the NIA.

Born in 1828, Elizabeth Adelaide Manning was involved in the formation of the London branch of the National Indian Association in February 1871 with her step-mother, Charlotte Manning, at their home at 107 Victoria Street, London. Charlotte Manning died soon after in April 1871 and her step-daughter later moved to Maida Vale. After the death of the founder, Mary Carpenter, in Bristol in 1877, Manning became Honorary Secretary of the NIA and the headquarters were shifted to London. With the role of Honorary Secretary, Manning also became editor of The Journal of the National Indian Association. Manning was involved in the renaming of the journal to The Indian Magazine in 1886 and then to The Indian Magazine and Review in 1891. She remained Honorary Secretary until July 1905, when she had to resign owing to ill-health.

Through a twenty-eight year stewardship of the National Indian Association, Manning's name became synonomous with the Association. Cornelia Sorabji stayed with Miss Manning when she first arrived in England in 1889 and maintained links with the Association throughout her life. Sukumar Ray visited the Association in 1911 and described the organization as 'Miss Manning's Association' in letters to his parents.

On her death in 1905, the Indian Magazine and Review produced a special memorial issue in October on that year. The issue included personal recollections from M. M. Bhownaggree, Syed Ameer Ali and Dadabhai Naoroji. In the November 1905 issue, the journal printed an obituary poem by N. B. Gazder, entitled 'In Memory of Elizabeth Adelaide Manning'. The NIA was one of the institutions to which Miss Manning bequeathed money in her will.

Atul Chandra Chatterjee was an administrator in India and later became High Commissioner in London. He first arrived in Britain in 1893, having won a Government of India scholarship to study at King’s College, Cambridge. He graduated with a Second Class in history in 1895. In 1896 he successfully sat the Indian Civil Service exam. He returned to India in 1897, taking up a post as district administrator in the United Provinces. Chatterjee pursued a successful career in the ICS. By 1921 he had been promoted to Secretary to the Government of India in the Department of Industries and in 1923 he joined the Department’s Executive Council.

In 1924, Chatterjee married Galdys Mary Broughton, who advised the Government of India on women’s and child welfare. In 1924, Chatterjee accepted the offer of the post of High Commissioner for India in London, which he held until 1931. He was the driving force behind the building of India House, Aldwych, which houses the Indian High Commission to this day. The building was opened in 1930 by George V. In London, Chatterjee represented the Indian Government at the International Labour Conference as well as the League of Nations. He also represented the Indian Government at the London Naval Conference in 1930.

His experience as an administrator and his diplomatic skills were highly respected and reflected in the honours that were bestowed on him. He was made a KCIE in 1925 and KCSI in 1930. Subsequent to being High Commissioner, Chatterjee sat on the Council of India for five years. In 1942 he became Advisor to the Secretary of State for India, a post he held until 1947.

Chatterjee also took an interest in the arts. He was a member of the council of the Royal Academy of Arts for twenty years and its chairman from 1939 to 1940. He was also a member of the Royal Asiatic Society and Vice-Chairman of the East India Association. He published widely on Indian history. He remained in England after Indian independence and died in Sussex in September 1955.