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.  

Uday Shankar was an artist, dancer and choreographer who popularized Indian dance through his effective use of western theatrical techniques in combination with classical Indian dance. Uday Shankar arrived in London in 1920 to study art at Royal College of Art under the tutelage of William Rothenstein. While in London, William Rothenstein sent him to the British Museum to study the reproductions of paintings from the caves of Ajanta and Ellora. The Russian ballerina Ana Pavlova convinced Shankar to turn to dance, winning a fiercly fought battle with Rothenstein over the future artistic direction of Shankar. His performances with Pavlova, partnering her in the ‘Radha Krishna’ ballet and ‘Hindu wedding’ in her programme titled ‘Oriental Impressions’, caused a sensation when first performed at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in September 1923 and they toured extensively through Europe and the US. Uday Shankar returned to London in 1923 and struggled to make a living by trying to find engagements in London cabaret clubs. In 1925 he moved to Paris, where he had more success. In 1926 he was joined by the French dancer Simkie, whom he taught classical Indian dance and who joined him on subsequent tours of Europe.

Shankar returned to India in 1927 and toured all major cultural centres in India to fire his imagination. At that time he also met Rabindranath Tagore. In 1930 he formed a new troupe of dancers and with a new programme returned to Paris in 1931 and subsequently toured with the programme to London and other major European cities. These performances in the early 1930s had a huge impact on art lovers in particular and led to a rediscovery of the cultural heritage of India. Shankar returned to India in 1935 and then toured Europe from 1936-8 with a new troupe, which included the dancers Shanti Bardhan, Simkie, Zohra Sehgal, and Uzra, once again taking all the big European cities by storm. During this time the troupe perfomed a charity performance at the Hindustani Social Club in London. In 1939 Shankar established the ‘Uday Shankar India Culture Centre’ at Almora, India, which continued until 1943 – it  had to be closed down because of the impact of the Second World War and financial difficulties. From 1943-7 Shankar worked on the dance film ‘Kalpana’, which was widely acclaimed and which he personally presented in Europe, the USSR and the USA in 1948. He went on a two-year tour of Europe and the US in 1949/1950 to raise funds for a new dance school in Calcutta. He died in Calcutta in 1977.

Laurence Binyon was a poet, critic, artist, dramatist and curator. He worked in the British Museum from 1892 till his retirement in 1933 and was instrumental in promoting Asian Art in the Museum. He was introduced to Indian literature and philosophy by the poet Manmohan Ghose. They met as schoolboys at St Paul's School, in a seventh form English class when Ghose quoted Othello in class. They became fast friends, bonding over their love for poety and Classics and admiration of Matthew Arnold. Binyon followed Ghose to Oxford in 1888 (Ghose had joined in 1887) and they were involved in producing a short selection of poems under the title of Primavera in 1890, which was among others, reviewed favourably by Oscar Wilde in the Pall Mall Gazette.

In 1910, Binyon became involved with the India Society in London, designed to promote Indian Fine Art. Binyon became friends with the art-historian Ananda Coomaraswamy, who introduced him to Rajput paintings. In June 1912, Binyon met Rabindranath Tagore at William Rothenstein's house and held an admiration for Tagore that lasted until his death. Binyon had been introduced to the work of Tagore by Manmohan Ghose who had returned to India in 1894 but maintained a correspondence for some years - providing inspiration for Binyon's poem 'Asoka' or 'The Indian Prince' in 1900. When Ghose died in 1924, his daughter, Lotika, came to England to meet Binyon and show him her father's manuscripts. This inspired Binyon to write an introductory memoir for an edition of Ghose's poems that was published in 1926 under the title Songs of Love and Death.

Shortly before the Armistice, in November 1918, Binyon met Kedar Nath Das Gupta in London. Das Gupta, a friend of Tagore's, was organizer of the Union of the East and West. He had prepared a rough translation of Sakuntala, which he wished to put on the stage; Binyon agreed to rewrite Kalidasa's play for the stage, and two performances were put on in November 1919, produced by Lewis Casson and starring Sybil Thorndike. In 1920, Binyon gave the inaugural address for the Indian Students' Union and Hostel opened in Gower Street. Another connection to India was realized through Binyon's introduction to the Indian artist, Mukul Dey's My Pilgrimages to Ajanta and Bagh (London: Thornton & Butterworth, 1925). Binyon did not manage to visit India in his lifetime, despite the desires he expressed to the Oxford Majlis society in 1929. Upon his death in 1943, the Oxford Majlis passed a resolution in honour of Binyon as a 'lifelong friend' of India.