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George Macdonald Home Playfair was born on 22 August 1850 at Shahjehanpore, Bengal, India, and educated at Cheltenham College, Gloucestershire, and Trinity College, Dublin. He joined the China Consular Service in 1872 as a student interpreter. He continued in the Consular Service until his retirement in 1901, rising through the ranks to become Foochow Consul in 1899. He retired to England with his wife, Winifred May Playfair, and died there in 1917.

Charles Elliott was born in London in 1776. He married Alicia Boileau in Calcutta in 1802 whilst working for the East india Company. He returned to London, living in Portland Place and was a member of the Royal Asiatic Society. He died in 1856. One of his sons, Rev Charles Boileau Elliott, became a well-known travel writer.

Samuel Davis was born in the West Indies where his father was Commissary General. After his father died he returned to England with his mother and siblings. He became an East India cadet in 1778, and sailed for India aboard the Earl of Oxford, arriving in Madras in 1780. In 1783 Warren Hastings assigned him as Draftsman and Surveyor on Samuel Turner's Mission to Bhutan and Tibet, but unable to enter Tibet he remained in Bhutan for the duration of the Mission.

On his return he was appointed Assistant to the Collector of Bhagalpur and Registrar of its Adalat Court. There he met William Jones and they became good friends, Davis also becoming a member of the Asiatic Society founded by Jones. He subsequently became Collector of Burdwan, a town in the Bengal Presidency, and from 1795-1800 was Magistrate of the district and city court in Benares. He continued in civil posts in India until his retirement in 1806 when he returned to England via St. Helena. He was elected as a Director of the East India Company on his return.

While in Burdwan, Davis married Henrietta Boileau and they had four sons and seven daughters. The eldest son, John Francis Davis, became the second Governor of Hong Kong. Davis died on 16 June 1819 at Birdhurst Lodge near Croyden in Surrey.

The Syro-Egyptian Society was founded on Tuesday 3 December 1844, the inaugural meeting taking place at the Society's Rooms, No. 71 Mortimer Street, Cavendish Square, London. Dr. John Lee was in the Chair and the meeting was attended by a 'very numerous company of Ladies and Gentlemen distinguished by their rank in Society, and by their attainments; including various celebrated Authors and Oriental Travellers...'. The Society was founded 'to bring together those who had travelled in, and directed their attention to the Antiquities and general History of Egypt, Nubia, Abyssinia, Arabia, Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor'. It seems that a Council had already been formed before this meeting to oversee the Society whose originator was Dr. W. Holt Yates.