Ernest Mason Satow was a British diplomat, scholar and Japanologist. Satow was influential in East Asia and Japan, particularly in Bakumatsu (1853–1867) and the Meiji-period (1868–1912). He also served in China after the Boxer Rebellion (1900–1906), in Thailand, Uruguay and Morocco, and represented Britain at the Second Hague Peace Conference in 1907. Satow was a linguist, a traveller, a writer of travel guidebooks, a dictionary compiler, a mountaineer, a keen botanist (chiefly with Frederick Dickins) and a major collector of Japanese books and manuscripts on all kinds of subjects. He authored A Diplomat in Japan and, in retirement, published A Guide to Diplomatic Practice .
Saroj Nalini Arambam was born in Imphal, Manipur, in 1933. She was the first Meetei woman to graduate and gain her Masters degree at Calcutta University. She moved to Britain in the late 1950s studying for a Bachelor of Divinity degree at the University of London. She graduated in 1961 and shortly after married John Parratt. She worked at the University of Ile-Ife, Nigeria, before undertaking a PhD on the Religion of Manipur, in the Department of Asian Studies, Australia National University, for which she undertook considerable field research. From 1975-1990 she taught in institutions in southern Africa while still continuing to undertake fieldwork on Manipur. With her husband, she co-authored books on Manipur and, also produced two volumes of the Court Chronicle of the Kings of Manipur, published by the Royal Asiatic society, the second volume being published posthumously.
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.