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Dr Francis Buchanan, later known as Francis Hamilton or Francis Buchanan-Hamilton, was a Scottish physician who made significant contributions as a geographer, zoologist, and botanist while living in India. He was born at Bardowie, Scotland, and studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, graduating in 1783. He also studied botany. He first served on merchant ships to Asia and then joined the Bengal Medical Service in 1794. Buchanan's training was ideal as a surgeon naturalist for a political mission to the Kingdom of Ava in Burma under Captain Symes. The Ava mission set sail on the Sea Horse and passed the Andaman Islands, Pegu, and Ava before returning to Calcutta. Subsequently Buchanan-Hamilton was asked to survey South India. He conducted a survey of Mysore in 1800 and a survey of Bengal from 1807-1814.

For the survey of Bengal he was asked to report on topography, history, antiquities, the condition of the inhabitants, religion, natural productions (particularly fisheries, forests, mines, and quarries), agriculture (covering vegetables, implements, manure, floods, domestic animals, fences, farms, and landed property, fine and common arts, and commerce (exports and imports, weights and measures, and conveyance of goods). His conclusions were made into a series of reports, of which these papers are the manuscripts. He also collected and described many new plants in the region, and collected a series of watercolours of Indian and Nepalese plants and animals, probably painted by Indian artists, which are now in the library of the Linnean Society of London.

He succeeded William Roxburgh to become the superintendent of the Calcutta botanical garden in 1814, but had to return to Britain in 1815 due to his ill health and in the same year he inherited his mother's estate and in consequence took her surname of Hamilton, referring to himself as "Francis Hamilton, formerly Buchanan" or simply "Francis Hamilton". However, he is variously referred to by others as "Buchanan-Hamilton", "Francis Hamilton Buchanan", or "Francis Buchanan Hamilton". From 1815 until 1829 he was Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh replacing Dr William Roxburgh.

Francis Christopher Rowland Robinson CBE, DL, FRAS (born 23 November 1944 in Barnet) is a British historian and academic who specialises in the history of South Asia and Islam. Since 1990, he has been Professor of History of South Asia at the University of London. He has twice been president of the Royal Asiatic Society: from 1997 to 2000, and from 2003 to 2006.

François Clement de Blois is a specialist on Semitic and Iranian languages and literatures and on the history and cultures of the Near East and Central Asia in premodern times,

Frank Fortescue Laidlaw was born at Galashiels on 1 February 1876 but spent his childhood in Guildford. He was educated at Uppingham School and Trinity College, Cambridge, studying Zoology. In 1899 he joined the Cambridge University Expedition to Malaya, under the leadership of W. W. Skeat, returning to England in the following year. He was then appointed Lecturer and Assistant Demonstrator in Zoology at Owen's College, Manchester. In 1903 he turned to the study of medicine and qualified from St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London, in 1909. In 1911 he took a practice at Uffculme, Devon, where he remained, except for three years in the R.A.M.C. in the first World War, until his retirement in 1945. He had a lifelong interest in natural history and for his services to Malayan natural history he was elected a corresponding member of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1920.

Laidlaw went to Malaya with Walter William Skeat (1866-1953), the anthropologist. However this letter is signed by W.O. Skeat and sent after W.W. Skeat's death. So presumably the author of the letter is William Oswald Skeat who was educated at Whitgift Grammer School, Croydon, and apprenticed under Gresley on GNR at the Doncaster Works. He gained experience in running the department at Peterborough, then moved to Stratford Works. He joined the staff of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1933, and edited their Proceedings from 1939. Between 1947 and 1950 he worked for British Council and from 1950 he was the Secretary of the Institution of Water Engineers.