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Raymond Head was born in London in 1948. He studied piano with Alice Goossens before attending Dartington College of Arts and Rolle College, Exmouth, Devon, from 1967 to 1970. He studied composition privately with Roger Smalley and Edwin Roxburgh and visited Darmstadt, Germany, for the Ferienkurse für Musik in 1968. After teaching at Bottisham Village College, Cambridge, and subsequently in Devon he went to Rome in 1976 and taught at St George's School, Rome, and was a repetiteur for Hans Werner Henze's first Cantiere at Montepulciano, Tuscany.

Raymond Head began an investigation into Indian influences on Western culture, a long time interest. This led to post-graduate work at the Royal College of Art, London, travel in the USA on a British Academy scholarship and a short-stay Yale Fellowship. In 1986 he published a book The Indian Style (Allen & Unwin, London, University of Chicago Press, 1986) which was followed in 1991 by A Catalogue of the Paintings and Drawings in the Royal Asiatic Society, London. He was invited to give the Sir George Birdwood Memorial Lecture at the Royal Society of Arts, London, in 1987. He also gave concerts and broadcasts for the BBC in London (during the 1982 Indian Festival, London), Turin, and for the National Trust on the theme of Indian influences on western music.

Head is a Gustav Holst scholar and a musical adviser to the Holst Birthplace Museum in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. He received a Holst Foundation Award 1984 to pursue original work on Holst and was a Trustee of the Holst Birthplace Museum from 2003 to 2006. On 4th April 2008 Raymond's Fanfare for Gustav Holst was played at the unveiling of Holst's Statue in Cheltenham.

For a full biography see Raymond Head's website (https://raymondhead.com/).

Raymond Head passed away on 1 September 2025, aged 77.

Richard Francis Burton was born on 19 March 1821, the eldest son of Captain Joseph Netterville Burton and his wife, Martha. He had a peripatetic childhood living on the continent as well as in England. His father wished for him to become a clergyman and therefore Burton was sent to Oxford in 1840 but managed to get himself 'rusticated' by attending a steeplechase against University rules.

Burton joined the Bombay Infantry of the East India Company in 1842. This was the start of his explorations and detailed recording of all that he saw. Burton was a very able linguist passing out top in the Company examinations but he was also interested in geography and ethnography including dialects and customs

Burton, as part of the Survey Company, made detailed topographical, ethnographic and linguistic notes resulting in the publication of his History of Sindh.

His life was full of travel and writing including travelling to Mecca and Medina in 1852, disguised as a Muslim, and an expedition to attempt to find the source of the Nile under the auspices of the Royal Geographical Society of which he was a member.

He visited North America in 1860 before marrying Isabel in 1861. Burton went to Bioko (Fernando Po), West Africa to take up the position of Consul. In 1865 he was appointed British Consul in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where Isabel accompanied him, and then subsequently in Damascus.

In 1872, they moved to Trieste to work in the Consulate and from here he explored the mines at Midian. In 1886 he was made a Knight of the Order of St Michael and St George. He died on 20 October 1890.

Burton was a prolific writer and his travels provided him with material for many books. He was also a keen translator including translating The Arabian Nights stories and the poems of the Portuguese poet, Cameons.

Peter Collin was head of French in the Department of European Languages and Literature at the University of Hong Kong. He returned to the UK in 1973 to work for Harrap, publishers of schoolbooks and dictionaries before starting his own publishing house, P H Collin in 1985, which was acquired on his retirement in 2002 by Bloomsbury. Since 1973 Peter is an active member of the Society and has served continuously on many committees including several
turns on the Council.

Forster Fitzgerald (F. F.) Arbuthnot (1833-1901) was a linguist and translator. He spent his early career in the Indian civil service in Bombay where he would have known Edward Rehatsek. He was also a close friend of Richard Burton and collaborated with him on publications. He acted as an editor for some of Rehatsek's work.

Michael Faraday was an English physicist and chemist who contributed to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. Faraday had only a basic school education and at the age of 14, became an apprentice to George Riebau, a bookbinder and bookseller. During his seven-year apprenticeship Faraday read many books, including Isaac Watts's The Improvement of the Mind and held discussions with his peers in the City Philosophical Society, where he attended lectures. He also developed an interest in science, especially in electricity. Faraday was particularly inspired by the book Conversations on Chemistry by Jane Marcet.

In 1812, at the age of 20 and at the end of his apprenticeship, Faraday attended lectures by the eminent English chemist Humphry Davy of the Royal Institution and the Royal Society, and John Tatum, founder of the City Philosophical Society. Faraday subsequently sent Davy a 300-page book based on notes he had taken during these lectures. In 1813, when Davy damaged his eyesight in an accident with nitrogen trichloride, he employed Faraday as an assistant. and as a Chemical Assistant at the Royal Institution.

In June 1832, the University of Oxford granted Faraday an honorary Doctor of Civil Law degree. During his lifetime, he was offered a knighthood in recognition for his services to science, which he turned down on religious grounds. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1824, he twice refused to become President. He became the first Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution in 1833. He continued his research but after retirement in 1858 Faraday lived at his house at Hampton Court and died there on 25 August 1867, aged 75.

Terence A. Phelps was an independent British researcher who became interested in the controversy concerning excavations in Northern India. He died in February 2018.