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.

Robert von Ranke Graves was born in 1895 to Alfred Perceval Graves and Amalie Elizabeth Sophie. Brought up in a literary family, Graves published his poetry in The Carthusian as early as 1911. In 1914, he was destined for St John's College, when war broke out and he was commissioned into the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. In 1916, he was badly wounded and believed to be dead, and in 1917 he was hospitalized with shell-shock. After he was decommissioned in 1919, he began studying English at St John's College, Oxford.

It was at the Lotus Club in Oxford in 1922 that Graves met Basanta Kumar Mallik, a Bengali who studied law then philosophy at Oxford. Mallik was sixteen years older than Graves but the two became close friends. They shared a commitment to truth and to morality, a discomfort with received tradition, and a search for an understanding and a resolution of the phenomenon of war. While Mallik returned to India in 1923, his philosophy had a significant impact on Graves' writing. This influence can be found in many of the poems included in the latter half of Whipperginny (1923), the 'Introductory Letter' to The Feather Bed (1923), Mock Beggar Hall (1924)and Welchman's Hose (1925). The 'M' of Graves' poem 'To "M" in India' (The Marmosite's Miscellany, 1925) refers to Mallik. The friendship soured, however, and when Mallik returned to Britain in 1936 Graves refused to meet him. The circumstances surrounding their falling out remain obscure but it is known that all references to Mallik have been expunged from editions of Graves' autobiography Good-Bye To All That subsequent to 1929.

After a brief stint as professor of English Literature at Cairo University in 1926, Graves returned to England in July 1926 where he embarked on a sexual and working relationship with Laura Riding, spending some time in Deyá, Mallorca. His writing improved and he wrote the prize-winning historical novel, I, Claudius (1934). By the end of 1934, Graves had sold the film rights for I, Claudius to Alexander Korda. It was to star Charles Laughton and Merle Oberon but the project never materialized.

Graves continued to write throughout his life and had several mistresses. In the 1950s, his reputation soared and he won several prizes, held professorships and gave talks in the United States. In the 1970s, his health started to decline and he ended his working life in 1975. He lived for another ten years until he died from heart failure on 7 December 1985 in Mallorca.

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.

Ernest Dowson was a poet. In the late 1890s, Dowson also translated French literature into English (including Zola, Balzac and Voltaire). He was one of a batch of young poets who represent the work of the last decade of the nineteenth century in England. He was intimately involved with the Rhymers' Club in London during this period, but died at a young age (32) from a combination of drink, depression and ill-health resulting from severe financial problems.

In 1886, Dowson entered Queen's College, Oxford. In his second year, an Indian student called Satis Chandra Mookerjee joined the college. As a result of his praise of bhang, Dowson and his friends experimented with cannabis. Dowson remained in touch with Mookerjee; they were both part of a group of four who visited the Gaiety Theatre in March 1889 (see Dowson letter to Arthur Moore, 24 March 1889).

Dowson left Oxford in 1888 and it was in London, in September 1890, that Lionel Johnson introduced Dowson to the Primavera poet and former Oxford student Manmohan Ghose. From letters to various friends, it appears that Dowson became quite enamoured with Ghose, describing him variously as 'charming' and 'beautiful lotus-eyed'. His correspondence mentions Ghose until the middle of 1891 when Dowson was planning to bring out a book called 'The Book of the Rhymers Club' which he hoped would include Ghose's work. When the book did come out, Ghose's name was not among the contributors who included Lionel Johnson, T. W. Rolleston, Arthur Symons and W. B. Yeats.

Ranjee Shahani was born in 1904 and travelled to Britain some time in the mid-1920s. He had a D.Litt from Paris and his first wife, Suzanne, was from Normandy, France. His second wife was Leticia V. Ramos from the Philippines.

In 1928, Shahani was writing a thesis on Shakespeare and asked advice from Edward Garnett. His book Shakespeare through Eastern Eyes was published in 1932. Shahani became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1933, although this lapsed in 1934. In 1934, he wrote to Rabindranath Tagore that he wished to put together a selection of Thomas Sturge Moore's poems. In this, Shahani mentioned that he had talked to "AE" and William Rothenstein, and thus appeared to have various connections with the British literary establishment. Shahani was also a member of the India Society and spoke regularly at their meetings.

Shahani lived in France with his wife, daughter and mother-in-law from 1938, but then returned to England in 1941 due to the war. In the 1940s, he wrote a series of articles called 'Some British I admire' for The Asiatic Review, which included Laurence Binyon, Charles Lamb and E. M. Forster. He died in 1968, and at time of his death was Professor of English Literature at Seton Hall University, near New York.

As a student at Oxford, Hasan Shahid Suhrawardy helped Robert Bridges (poet laureate) select the 'oriental' poems for The Spirit of the Man (London: Longmans, 1915). On 29 November 1915, Suhrawardy, with D. H. Lawrence and Philip Arnold Heseltine, visited Lady Ottoline Morrell. [A photo of which, taken by Lady Ottoline, is available in the National Portrait Gallery.] Other guests recorded in the visitors' book that day included Aldous Huxley.

Suhrawardy was a poet and art critic, who also worked as a diplomat. He was the son of Justice Sir Zahid Suhrawardy and Khujesta Akhtar Banu and nephew of Abdullah Al-Mamun Suhrawardy who had also studied at Oxford. Suhrawardy was a graduate of Presidency College, Calcutta, before sailing for England. After graduating from Oxford, he taught English at the Imperial University of St Petersburg and at the Women's University in Moscow. Amongst his students was Alexander Kerensky, the Prime Minister of Russia. Suhrawardy was a member of the producers' committee at the Moscow Art Theatre and worked with the composer, Igor Stravinsky. He witnessed the Bolshevik Revolution of 1919 and then moved to France. He returned to India in the 1920s to pursue research in art, teaching in Calcutta and Hyderabad. He also translated works from Russian and Chinese into English.

His younger brother, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, who was at Oxford at the same time, was Prime Minister (the post now called Chief Minister) of Bengal in 1946 and Prime Minister of Pakistan, 1956-7. Due to similar sounding names and the same initials with his brother, Hasan Shahid Suhrawardy is often known as Shahid Suhrawardy. He should also not be confused with his uncle Sir Hassan Suhrawardy.

Manmohan Ghose was the son of Dhan Ghose and his wife, Swarnalata Basu. His younger brother was Sri Aurobindo (Aravinda) Ghose, the politician and spiritual leader.

Manmohan, a brilliant scholar, was educated at Manchester grammar school (1881–4), St Paul's School in London (1884–7) and won an open scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford which he took up in 1887.

Ghose became close friends with Laurence Binyon at St Paul's, bonding over their love for the Classics and Matthew Arnold. Binyon credited Ghose for introducing him to Indian literature, art and philosophy. Binyon joined Oxford a year after Ghose and they collaborated on the poetry publication, Primavera, published in 1890. In the vacations he and his brothers stayed at 128 Cromwell Road, London, the office of the South Kensington Liberal Club. The Liberal Club's secretary was J. S. Cotton, editor of the Academy, who was born in India and whose publication reviewed Primavera. Ghose later met Oscar Wilde at the Fitzroy Street settlement, who reviewed Primavera in the Pall Mall Gazette, with particular favour towards Ghose. During this time in London, Ghose met many other members of the 'Rhymers' Club' set such as Lionel Johnson and Ernest Dowson, who were both very fond of him. Dowson had wished for Ghose's work to be included in The Book of the Rhymers Club that was published in 1892, but Ghose was unable to contribute as he could not share the cost of the expenses.

In 1893, after his father’s death, Ghose returned to India in mourning and took a series of teaching posts in Patna, Bankipur, and Calcutta. In 1897 he was appointed Assistant Professor at Dacca College and full Professor in 1901. After the death of his wife, Malati Banerjee, in 1918, his health deteriorated and he aged prematurely. For thirty years Ghose had cherished the dream of returning to England. In 1924 he booked a passage for himself and his daughters for a date in March, but he died in Calcutta, on 4 January 1924 after a short illness, three weeks before his retirement from Presidency College.

Bonamy Dobrée was a literary scholar and university teacher, best known for his works on Restoration and eighteenth-century drama. In 1925-6, he taught at London University, and he became Professor of English at University of Leeds in 1936. He was educated and trained as a professional soldier, and fought with distinction during the First World War. He is also famous as a Kipling critic.

During his lectureship in London, Dobrée became a part of the Bloomsbury Group. He was a close friend of T. S. Eliot, whom he met in 1924 in Leonard Woolf’s house in Richmond, and with whom he regularly met up for lunches in London. The two men shared a love for Kipling as an artist, and in 1926 Eliot commissioned him to write an essay on Kipling for the Criterion. Among Dobrée’s other friends was Herbert Read, with whom he collaborated to edit The London Book of English Prose (1931) and English Verse (1949).

Dobrée was, in Richard Hoggard’s words, a ‘teacher and patron of young men’. Mulk Raj Anand, in his Conversations in Bloomsbury, presents a similar picture. Anand met Dobrée through his fellow student Nikhil Sen shortly after his arrival in London in 1925. Anand records a lively conversation he had with Dobrée, Sen and Gwenda Zeidmann in Museum Tavern, and a relaxing evening together with Dobrée, his wife Valentine, Sen, and Irene Rhys at Francis Meynall’s flat in the summer of 1926. In 1925, Dobrée introduced Anand to T. S. Eliot, and helped him to set up a meeting with the poet. He proved to be a good friend and mentor, despite the fact that his views on British India and admiration of Kipling occasionally offended Anand.

Basanta Mallik was a significant twentieth-century Indian philosopher who followed his studies in philosophy at the University of Calcutta (BA, 1902; MA, 1903) with a period as a student then academic at the University of Oxford. Mallik began his time at Oxford as a law student, gaining a BA in Jurisprudence in 1916; he went on to complete a Certificate in Physical and Cultural Anthropology (1918) and a Diploma in Anthropology (1919). His studies at Oxford were sponsored by the Prime Minister of Nepal (Mallik worked initially as a tutor for his sons but later took up many government roles, especially in foreign affairs). Unable to return home after the First World War broke out, he resumed his first love, philosophy, getting agreement from his patrons to begin a BLitt (PhD).

Able to remain in Oxford, he became part of closely knit group of friends and frequently visited Robert Bridges at Boar’s Hill. He met Robert Graves at a Lotus Club dinner in 1922 and significantly influenced the poet’s early work. Graves treated him as a mentor and was fascinated with his metaphysical and philosophical meditations on breaking down conflict, violence and the clash of civilizations. Traces of this influence are evident in Graves’s early work, in collections such as Mock Beggar Hall, appealing to the pacifist interests of the Hogarth Press and Leonard Woolf. Mallik also established close friendships with T. E. Lawrence, Sydney Lewis and Sam Harries who met up at Boar’s Hill or in Mallik’s Oxford rooms. He was active in the Lotus Club and was friends with many other Indians in Oxford. His ideas attempted to bridge philosophical debates drawn from ‘East’ and ‘West’; Mallick, like others of his generation, was widely read in both traditions. His belief that the effect of British rule in India had made untenable the concepts of equality and freedom on which humanist ideals were based made him an anti-imperialist, although he did not believe in violent resistance. Mallik went back to Nepal in 1923 and then to Calcutta. He returned to Oxford in 1938 where he continued to write, lecture and publish until his death in 1958.

The friendship with Graves is recorded in the first edition of Robert Graves’s autobiography, published in 1929, Goodbye to All That. Graves and his family cut off the close relations with Mallik soon after he returned to Nepal in 1923 and once Graves had decided not to follow him there with others of the group. Graves deletes all references to Mallik in later editions of his autobiography (see Sondhi and Walker on the complexities of this relationship).

Nikhil Sen was a friend of Mulk Raj Anand and moved in the same circles in London in the 1920s. Little is known about Sen; however, Anand mentions him extensively in Conversations in Bloomsbury (1981).

It appears that Sen was already in London when Anand arrived in 1925. Like Anand, Sen was a student at University College, London. He was also a poet and an art lover. According to Anand, Sen studied in the British Museum Reading Rooms and the two often lunched together in University College lower refectory, the Museum Tavern or at Poggiolis in Charlotte Street. Sen's girlfriend was Edna Thompson, who was a student of literature; other fellow students included Mr. Topa and Parkash Pandit. Sen apparently worked at Arthur Probsthain’s Oriental Bookshop in Russell Street, and found work for Anand in Jacob Schwartz’s Ulysses Bookshop.  

Furthermore, Sen already knew several members of the 'Bloomsbury Group' when Anand arrived in Britain. Indeed, it was Sen who introduced Anand to Bonamy Dobree, Gwenda Zeidmann, Jacob Schwartz, Harold Monro, Edith Sitwell, Laurence Binyon and Leonard Woolf. Together they met T. S. Eliot, Aldous Huxley and D. H. Lawrence, and they would go to the British Museum with Laurence Binyon. Like Anand, Sen was frustrated by the orientalist views of some members of the Bloomsbury Group and would often argue with Eliot and Lawrence.