Laurence Austine Waddell was born in Glasgow, where he was educated, obtaining a bachelor's degree in Medicine followed by a master's degree in both Surgery and Chemistry at Glasgow University in 1878. In 1879 he visited Ceylon and Burma which sparked his interest in Buddhism. In 1880 Waddell joined the British Indian Army and served as a medical officer with the Indian Medical Service. In 1881 he became a Professor of Chemistry and Pathology at the Medical College of Kolkata, India. While working in India, Waddell also studied Sanskrit and edited the Indian Medical Gazette. He became Assistant Sanitary Commissioner under the government of India.
Between 1885-1887 Waddell took part in the British expedition that annexed Upper Burma. After his return from Burma, Waddell was stationed in the Darjeeling district of India, and was appointed Principal Medical Officer in 1888.
Waddell travelled extensively through India in the 1890s including through Nepal, Sikkim, and the Tibetan border, researching Buddhist practices. He learnt Tibetan and made several secret visits there. He also collected Buddhist antiquities and was concerned with the quest to discover the birthplace of Buddha. He also continued his medical practice with the Indian Medical Service including serving in the Boxer Rebellion in China. He was in Malakand in 1902 and part of the Tibetan Mission to Lhasa in 1903-4.
He returned to England and was Professor of Tibetan at University College, London. from 1906-1908. In 1908, Waddell started to learn Sumerian and spent the later years of his life studying Near East culture and Indo-European language origins. He died in 1938.
Major General George Legrand Jacob (24 April 1805-1881) was an army officer in the East India Company. At the age of fifteen he began learning languages under Dr John Borthwick Gilchrist. He became fluent in Hindi, Persian, Marathi and Sanksrit. He was in the Grenadier Regiment Bombay Native Infantry and was promoted to Lieutenant in 1823 and to Major General in 1861. He is perhaps most known for suppressing the Indian Rebellion of 1857, involving a mutiny in the 27th Bombay Native Infantry. He was one of the earliest copiers of the Asoka Inscriptions. In addition to publishing many papers on Indian history, archaeology and topography, he wrote a book titled 'Western India before and during the Mutiny' which was published in 1871. He died in London on 27 January 1881 and was buried in Brockwood Cemetery in Surrey.
David Lockhart Robertson Lorimer was born on 24 December 1876. He entered the Indian Army in 1896. From 1898-1903 he served with the Q.V.O. Corps of Guides, and was seconded with the Khalibar Rifles from 1901-1903. He entered the Indian Political Service in 1903, serving with them until 1924. His posts included H.B.M.S. Vice-Consul for Arabistan (1903-1909); Political Agent, Bahrein (1911-1912); H.M. Consul, Kerman and Persian Baluchistan, and ex-officio Assistant to the Political Resident, Persian Gulf (1912-1914); Assistant Political Agent, Chitral (1915); on field service with the I.E.F.D., Mesopotamia, and Civil Governor Am'ra (1915-1916); H.M. Consul Kerman and Persian Baluchistan (1916-1917); Political Agent, Loralai, Baluchistan (1920), and Political Agent, Gilgit (1920-1924). Lorimer was awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship, 1933-1935. He also received an honorary fellowship of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, in 1953.
Lorimer's publications included Syntax of Colloquial Pashtu (1915); Persian Tales (1919); The Phonology of the Bakhtiari, Badakshani, and Madaglashti Dialects of Modern Persian (1922); The Burushaski Language , Volumes I and II (1935), and Volume III (1938); The Dum'ki Language (1939), and The Wakhi Language (1958). He died in 1962.
Emily Overend Lorimer (1881-1949) was a British linguist, political analyst and author, She was a tutor in Germanic Philology at Somerville College Oxford ,1907-10, and editor of 'Basrah Times' 1916-17. She was with her husband, David Lockhart Robertson Lorimer, British resident in Cairo during the First World War and its Arab Revolt. She was an early translator and analyst of Nazi works, including Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf in the 1920s and 1930s. She worked with her husband on Asian studies.
Roland Carter (1924-2018) was a Political Agent in Gilgit 1945; and subsequently a diplomat in Moscow, Helsinki, Kuala Lumpur, Ulan Bator (Ambassador), and Pretoria.