Sir Thomas Edward Colebrooke, known as Sir Edward Colebrooke, was the second son of Henry Thomas Colebrooke, founder of the RAS. Alongside leading a political career, he served as the President of the Society from 1864 to 1866, from 1875 to 1877 and in 1881.
Sir Edward Douglas Maclagan was a colonial administrator in India. Maclagan wrote widely about the Punjab area and in 1906 he was appointed Chief Secretary to the Government of the Punjab, becoming, in 1910, Secretary to the Revenue Department of the Indian Government and, from 1915 to 1918, Secretary to the Education Department. He became Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab in 1919 and Governor from 1921 to 1924. Concurrently from 1919-1924 he was Chancellor of University of the Punjab. He returned to England in 1924. From 1925 to 1928 and 1931 to 1934 he was President of the Royal Asiatic Society, and in 1930, its Director.
Sir Edwin Arnold was an English poet and journalist. He was born in Gravesend, Kent, and educated in Rochester and Oxford before becoming a schoolmaster in Birmingham. In 1856 he went to India as Principal of the Government Sanskrit College at Poona. He returned to England in 1861 and worked as a journalist for the Daily Telegraph. He was best known as a poet and specifically for interpreting Eastern philosophy and life in English verse. His chief work with this object is "The Light of Asia", or "The Great Renunciation", a poem of eight books in blank verse.
Sir Ernest Mason Satow was born in London and educated at Mill Hill School and University College, London. Satow was an exceptional linguist, an energetic traveller, a writer of travel guidebooks, a dictionary compiler, a mountaineer, a keen botanist, and a major collector of Japanese books and manuscripts on all kinds of subjects. He served in Japan and China as a diplomat and was Britain's second plenipotentiary at the Second Hague Peace Conference.
Major General George Le Grand 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.
Sir George Thomas Staunton was born near Salisbury, the son of the diplomat, George Leonard Staunton. Aged 12, George Thomas accompanied his father on the Macartney Embassy to China, and his Chinese language ability was sufficient for conversation. In 1798 was appointed a writer in the British East India Company's factory at Canton (Guangzhou), and subsequently its chief. He continued to study Chinese and in 1805 he translated a work of Dr George Pearson into Chinese, followed, five years later, by an English translation of a significant part of the Chinese legal code.
In 1816 Staunton was second commissioner on a special mission to Beijing with Lord Amherst and Sir Henry Ellis. The embassy was unsuccessful and shortly after it departed back to Britain Staunton decided to leave China permanently. In England he bought the Leigh estate in 1820 and constructed a new home. Staunton was a founder member of the Royal Asiatic Society and donated many items to its Collections.
Sir Gore Ouseley, 1st Baronet GCH, PC (24 June 1770 – 18 November 1844), was a British entrepreneur, linguist and diplomat. He was born in Ireland and educated at home. Whilst serving the British Government and posted in Lucknow he became a friend of the local Nawab Saadat Ali Khan and was responsible for building a palace called Dilkusha Kothi on the banks of the Gomti near Lucknow. This palace, a copy of the English Baroque stately home of Seaton Delaval Hall, stood for about fifty years until it was damaged in the Siege of Lucknow. Ouseley was made a baronet in 1808 with the recommendation of Lord Wellesley.
From 1810 Ouseley served as ambassador to Persia, the first ambassador since the time of Charles I. Ouseley was involved in negotiating treaties with Persia and Russia including the Treaty of Gulistan. He left Persia in 1814, stopping off in St Petersburg. While in Russia, he was awarded the Grand Cordon of the Russian Order of St. Alexander Nevsky.
Ouseley spent his final years in England and in 1835, he served as the High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire. He died in 1844 died at Hall Barn Park, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire.
Graves Chamney Haughton (1788-1849) was educated in England before travelling to India in 1808 with the East India Company. He became proficient in Hindustani, studying at Fort William College. He returned to England in 1815 and in 1817 was appointed assistant professor at Haileybury College and held the post of professor of Sanskrit and Bengali from 1819 to 1827. He was supported by various prominent academics when he attempted in 1832 to be elected as the first Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford University but he stood down in favour of Horace Hayman Wilson. He was a founding member of the Royal Asiatic Society and served as its Librarian from 1831-1837. He died of cholera in Paris on 28 August 1849.
Sir Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb was a Scottish historian on Orientalism, teaching first at the School of Oriental Studies, London, and subsequently at the University of Oxford before moving to Harvard University in 1955. He was a trustee of the Gibb Memorial Trust.