MacCarthy was a talented violinist who had trained at the Royal College of Music and toured with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. From an early age, MacCarthy claimed to experience mystical visions and she maintained an interest in esoteric spirituality throughout her life. In 1905, she accompanied the soon-to-be president of the Theosophical Society, Annie Besant, on a visit to India where MacCarthy was deeply influenced not only by the religious practices of South Asia, but also its music.

This is an interest she further developed with her second husband, the composer John Foulds, whom she married in 1915. They collaborated on his World Requiem and MacCarthy wrote and spoke about Indian music in the UK. She also had an interest in the visual arts and was a founder member of the Theosophical Arts Circle (1907-14) and wrote for their journal, Orpheus. Foulds and MacCarthy met a young man, referred to only as 'The Boy' in her writings, who was employed in a gas works in the East End of London. According to MacCarthy, 'The Boy' possessed great spiritual powers and could channel an initiated spiritual group known as 'The Brothers'. In 1935, MacCarthy, Foulds and 'The Boy' moved to India where they established an ashram to promulgate these spiritual teachings. After Foulds death, MacCarthy took the name Swami Omananda Puri.

Alice Richardson met Ananda Coomaraswamy around 1910, most probably at a recital of folk songs given by pupils of the collector of folk songs and cultural revivalist, Cecil Sharp. Richardson accompanied Coomaraswamy on a trip to India in 1911 and became his second wife. They lived on a houseboat in Srinagar, Kashmir, whilst she studied Indian music with Abdul Rahim of Kapurthala, and Coomaraswamy researched Rajput painting of northern India.

Once back in London, Alice Coomaraswamy became noted for her recitals of Indian music which were often introduced by an explanatory lecture given by her husband. She performed widely in the UK (including at the Theosophical Society Summer Schools) under the name Ratan Devi and in Indian dress. When the Coomaraswamys first went to the US, it was for her concert tour. Alice had two children (a boy, Narada, and a girl, Rohini) by Coomaraswamy before their divorce and his subsequent marriage to the American dancer and artist, Stella Bloch.

Walter Crane was an Arts and Crafts designer, theorist and active socialist. His work is difficult to categorize. He made designs for wallpaper, pottery, stained glass, trades union banners; illustrated books, newspapers and magazines; wrote prolifically; and also painted. He believed in the ‘unity of the arts’ and was a founder member of the Art Workers’ Guild (founded in 1884), and was also president of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society from 1888 to 1893.

Crane was the first person in the audience to respond to George Birdwood’s damning comments concerning Indian art, made after E. B. Havell’s paper on 12 January 1910 at the Royal Society of Arts. Alighting on Havell’s points about the dangers of Western commercialism for the survival of traditional Indian arts and craft, Crane said that he had found a link between what certain artists in India and England were attempting to do, namely, to ‘raise the banner of the handicrafts’.

Crane and his wife had travelled to India in the winter of 1906-7, a journey he recorded in his book India Impressions. Crane noted that he and his wife had been inspired to make the trip after making the acquaintance several young Indian men in London, many of whom were called to the Bar. Crane was also a member of the India Society and sat on the Executive Committee of the Festival of Empire in 1911. He was involved with the Festival’s Indian Court committee and was appointed to the art sub-committee. Crane designed posters and other visual material for the Festival. A year after the Festival of Empire, Crane designed the front cover of a new publication, the African Times and Orient Review, edited by the Egyptian writer, actor and nationalist, Duse Mohamed.

Francis Younghusband was a member of the British Indian Army. He was an explorer of the Gobi Desert and Manchuria. In 1903, Younghusband led a mission to Tibet. In 1906, he became British Resident in Kashmir.

Younghusband returned to Britain in 1909 and became involved and interested in religious/spiritual matters. He was a member of the India Society and became friends with many Indians in Britain. In 1933 he attended the Second Parliament of Religions in Chicago. He then became involved in the organization and leadership of the World Fellowship of Faith's congress in London, to be held in 1936. Subsequent congresses were held in places such as Oxford in 1937, Cambridge in 1938, Paris in 1939, in which Younghusband continued to take a leading role.

Younghusband wrote twenty-six books between 1895 and 1942 on topics ranging from exploration and mountaineering to philosophy and politics.

Ranjee Shahani was born in 1904 and travelled to Britain some time in the mid-1920s. He had a D.Litt from Paris and his first wife, Suzanne, was from Normandy, France. His second wife was Leticia V. Ramos from the Philippines.

In 1928, Shahani was writing a thesis on Shakespeare and asked advice from Edward Garnett. His book Shakespeare through Eastern Eyes was published in 1932. Shahani became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1933, although this lapsed in 1934. In 1934, he wrote to Rabindranath Tagore that he wished to put together a selection of Thomas Sturge Moore's poems. In this, Shahani mentioned that he had talked to "AE" and William Rothenstein, and thus appeared to have various connections with the British literary establishment. Shahani was also a member of the India Society and spoke regularly at their meetings.

Shahani lived in France with his wife, daughter and mother-in-law from 1938, but then returned to England in 1941 due to the war. In the 1940s, he wrote a series of articles called 'Some British I admire' for The Asiatic Review, which included Laurence Binyon, Charles Lamb and E. M. Forster. He died in 1968, and at time of his death was Professor of English Literature at Seton Hall University, near New York.

Christiana Powell married Wilmot Herringham in 1880. Her father had been, among other occupations, an art collector. Herringham was also interested in art, an interest that was encouraged by her husband. In 1906 the Herringhams toured India and saw the Ajanta caves in Hyderabad, which contained damaged wall paintings of the life and times of Buddha.

In 1910, Herringham became involved in the promotion of Indian Art in the UK through her friendship with William Rothenstein. Ernest Havell and Rothenstein formed the India Society and Herringham joined the committee. She was the only female committee member at the time. The Society would often meet at her home at 40 Wimpole Street in London. Her husband became Chair of the India Society committee in 1914.

Following the formation of the Society, Herringham returned to the Ajanta caves with Rothenstein. She set up a camp with the help of the Nizam of Hyderabad, and with several artists set about copying the frescoes. It should also be noted that Herringham was a committed suffragette. In 1914, she returned to the UK but was beset by ill health until her death in Sussex in 1929.

T. W. Rolleston graduated from Trinity College, Dublin in 1878 and was editor of the Dublin University Review from May 1885 to December 1885. He was friends with W. B. Yeats and helped found the Irish Literary Society in London in 1892. Rolleston was a journalist who wrote for the Irish press and then moved to Hampstead, North London, in 1909. He was a regular contributor to The Times Literary Supplement, specialising in Oriental subjects.

In 1910, Rolleston was involved in the foundation of the India Society. He acted as Treasurer and then Honorary Secretary of the Society. Rolleston was involved in the aim of establishing a Lectureship in Indian Art at the School of Oriental Studies, but was unsuccessful in raising enough funds before his death in 1920.

Harihar Das called Rolleston 'a friend of India' and praised him for 'his service to Indian culture' in an obituary written for The Asiatic Review in January 1922.