Arent Jen Wensinck, from 1912 until 1927, was professor of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Syriac at the University of Leiden, and in 1927 he succeeded Snouck Hurgronje as professor of Arabic and Islam at the same university, at which post he remained until his death.
Henry Guppy CBE was Librarian of the John Rylands Library in Manchester from 1899 until his death in 1948. He was created Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1937. He was active in the Library Association of Great Britain and among his notable achievements are contributions to the reconstruction of the university library of Louvain between the World Wars and the founding of the Bulletin of the John Rylands Library in 1903. During much of his tenure in Manchester he resided at Buxton, where he died. He was survived by his wife Matilda, with whom he had two daughters, Lilian and Alberta.
George Michael Wickens was a distinguished Canadian-British Persianist as well as Arabist, translator and a University lecturer. Wickens was born in London, England and attended Trinity College, Cambridge, where he received his BA in 1939 and MA in 1946, respectively. During the Second World War, he served with the Royal Army Pay Corp from 1939 to 1941 and the Intelligence Corps from 1941 to 1946, rising to the rank of captain. Following his wartime service, most of which was spent in Iran, Wickens resumed academic life, teaching at the University of London for three years before accepting an invitation to return to Cambridge. He taught there until 1957 when he was offered an associate professorship at University of Toronto. He became a full professor in 1960 and founding chair of the Department of Islamic Studies (predecessor to today’s Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations) in 1961. A prolific and distinguished humanities scholar, Wickens was the author of 'Avicenna: Scientist and Philosopher' (1952) and he translated several masterpieces of Persian literature such as Boostan of Sa'di into English. Wickens died in Toronto, Ontario in 2006 from a stroke
Hubert Seymour Garland Darke was a teacher and scholar of Persian and Lecturer in Persian at Cambridge University’s Faculty of Oriental Studies from 1961 to 1982.
Henry Creswicke Rawlinson was born in 1810 in Oxfordshire. He sailed to India 1827, to take up a cadetship in the East India Company's army. In 1833 he was sent to Persia with other British officers to organise and train the Persian army. It was during his duty in Persia that he first saw the great trilingual cuneiform inscription at Behistun (Bisitun) and began his work on cuneiform decipherment. In 1839 the British military officers were withdrawn as a result of a change in Persian foreign policy.
In 1841, Rawlinson joined the British military contingent in Afghanistan, where he was stationed at Kandahar as political agent (consul). When the Afghans rose against the British, he was required to organise the defence of Kandahar, which he did successfully. In 1842, on his return from Afghanistan, much of his property, including most of his papers, was lost when a river boat caught fire on the river Sutlej. In 1843, Rawlinson was posted to Baghdad as political agent, where he spent the rest of his East India Company career, and resumed work on cuneiform inscriptions. He returned to England from 1849-1851 on sick leave. But in 1851 he was entrusted by the Trustees of the British Museum with supervision of the archaeological excavations at Nimrud after A H Layard abandoned archaeology for a career in politics and diplomacy. He also conducted excavations on his own account in other places.
In 1855 he was relieved of his post at Baghdad and returned to England permanently. Almost immediately the Trustees of the British Museum applied to the Government for a special grant to fund the publication of lithographic reproductions of the cuneiform inscriptions in their collections under Rawlinson's editorship. In 1856 he was appointed a Crown Director of the East India Company. he also received a baronetcy. In 1858 he became MP for Reigate, but resigned after a few months to take up a seat on the newly-formed Council for India.
In 1859 Rawlinson was appointed Ambassador to Tehran, which involved his resigning his seat on the Council for India. He resigned from this position in 1860. in September 1862 he married Louisa Caroline Harcourt Seymour and in 1865 became MP for Frome. He held the seat until 1868 when he rejoined the Council for India, a post which he held to the end of his life.
His wife Louisa died in 1889 which seemed to have deeply affected Rawlinson. Concern for his father's well-being led to their son, Henry Seymour, resigning his post in India to continue his military career in England. Rawlinson died at the beginning of 1895.