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John George Taylor was an archaeologist, son of Captain [later Colonel] R. Taylor, who was the Assistant Political Agent in Basra from 1818-1822. John Taylor was appointed the Hon. East India Company's Agent and H.M. Vice-Consul at Basra from 8 August 1851 to 30 September 1858, and from 1859 H.M. Consul-General for Kurdistan at Diyarbekir and Erzerum. He excavated at Ur (1854) as a direct result of an earlier visit by William Kennett Loftus (q.v.), and at Abu Shahrain and Tell al-Lahm (1855). He must also have returned to Ur in 1858.

In 1861 he recovered stelae of Ashurnasirpal II and Shalmaneser III at Kurkh near Diyarbekir, and he was commissioned to excavate in this region on behalf of the British Museum.

Theobald arrived in Calcutta on the ship Hindostan in March 1847 and worked as a volunteer in the coal exploration of the upper Damodar and Son valleys under David Williams. During this time Joseph Hooker visited him and they spent time together. Later Theobald became an assistant to John McClelland who took over the exploration from David Williams. He went to Burma in 1855 as a staff of the Geological Survey of India and took over the Pegu survey. He returned to Bengal on completion of the survey in 1873 to be appointed Deputy Superintendent of Bengal in 1876. From 1868 to 1876 he described a dozen new species of reptiles. Theobald is known chiefly as a malacologist and naturalist but also seems to have an interest in the coinage of Hindustan, perhaps after his retirement from service in 1881.

Anton Tien was born in Beirut, Syria, in 1834. He studied theology in Rome for several years but then converted to Anglicanism. He came to England with letters of introduction to William Gladstone who advised him to go to theological college. Therefore he entered St Augustine's College, Canterbury. During the Crimean War he was Oriental Secretary on Lord Baglan's staff. In 1860 he travelled to Constantinople as a priest where his knowledge of Middle Eastern languages enabled him to tutor both at missions schools and privately.

Tien acted as interpreter between a visiting Omani dignitary and representatives of Queen Victoria in 1886 and, in 1896, he was appointed Professor of Turkish at King's College, London, a position he held until 1913. He was a member of the Royal Asiatic Society. He died in 1920 in Sussex.

Alan Charles Trott was a British diplomat. He was educated at Exeter School and St John's College, Cambridge. He served in WWI before being employed in the Levant Consular Service from 1920. Postings included Tehran, Resht, Ispahan, Casablanca. Shiraz and Jedda. He served at Consul-General in at Ahwaz, Persia, 1945-47, and Ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1947-51. He resigned in December 1951 but subsequently became the Director of the Middle East Center for Arab Studies, Shemian, Lebanon, from 1953-57. He was interested in the birds and flowers of the area. He died on 6 July 1959.

The Second Turkish Linguistic Congress was convened in Istanbul in August 1934 to discuss the position of the Turkish language among the languages of the world; the historical evolution of the Turkish language; and the meaning and aims of the linguistic revolution in Turkey.

John Fisher Turner was born in 1881, the son of a barrister. He was educated at Rugby and the Royal Marine Academy at Woolwich before being commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1900. He served in the North-west Frontier in 1908 and became the Chief Engineer of the Royal Air Force, India, from 1928-1931. He is remembered for his ingenuity in designing decoy sites in Britain during World War II. He died on 21 May 1958. He never married.