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James Sibree Milledge was born in 1930. He worked for the London Missionary Society in South India from 1961 to 1972. He married Betty Avril (née Astle) in 1956. He belongs to a large family of missionaries (named both Milledge and Sibree) who worked in a number of regions for the London Missionary Society, but in particular Madagascar. The most famous of these missionary ancestors was James Sibree.

Lancelot Lawford worked for the Chinese Maritime Customs in Shanghai and Peking at a period of political instability and fighting following the Chinese revolution of 1911 and the establishment of a republic.

James Cameron was born on 6 January 1800 at Little Dunkeld in Perthshire. In May 1826 he sailed to Madagascar with the London Missionary Society. Once in Madagascar he helped to set up cotton machinery at Amparibe, in getting the printing press into action, and in other public work. The continuation of the mission from 1829 to 1835 was largely due to the desire of the government to retain the services of Mr. Cameron and other artisans. He taught the Malagasy how to make soap, a circumstance that had an important influence in prolonging missionary work in Madagascar. In consequence of the edict against Christianity, he left the capital in June 1835, and proceeded to Cape Town with his wife. There he established himself in business and became Surveyor to the Corporation of Cape Town. In 1853 he was appointed by the Chamber of Commerce in Mauritius to negotiate with the Malagasy Government for the renewal of trade. In 1863 he returned to Madagascar to superintend the erection of the Memorial Churches. Arriving at Antananarivo, he aided in the erection of the Memorial Church at Ambatonakanga, and built the Children's Church at Faravohitra, and up to the time of his death was engaged in building work both for the mission and for the Government. He died on 3 October 1875.

Rev. Harry Parsons was born on 26 November 1878 in Barnstable and entered the Ministry of the Bible Christian Church in 1899. He served in China from 1902 to 1926. He married Edith Bryant on 24 April 1906 in Yunnanfu. In 1907 the Bible Christian Church united with other sections of Methodism to form the United Methodist Church. He died on 8 July 1952.

Edith Annie Kate Parsons was born on 13 December 1876 near Tiverton. She and Harry Parsons were engaged in 1899 and the Bible Christian Church subsequently accepted her as a lay missionary. She sailed for China in 1904. The Parsons had three children, Elsie, born in Zhaotong in 1910 and the twins, (Richard) Keith and (Philip) Kenneth, born in Zhaotong on 17 September 1916.

Both Philip Kenneth Parsons and Richard Keith Parsons became ordained ministers of the Methodist Church, who served at home and overseas. Philip Kenneth served in the Hupeh Central China District, 1940-1946, South West China District, 1946-1950, and later in Kenya, 1953-1965. Richard Keith served in Hupea District, China, 1942-1950, and later as Educational Secretary, United Christian Council, Sierra Leone District, 1953-1958.

From c.1904, Rev. and Mrs Parsons and Rev. Samuel Pollard (also a missionary in Yunnan with the United Methodist Church) went to live among the Hua Miao tribe at Shimenkan, 25 miles east of Zhaotong. They learnt the Hua Miao language and used a simple phonetic script to reduce it to writing. Philip Kenneth and Richard Keith Parsons continued this work with the Hua Miao language. In 1949, they were approached by Mr Wang Ming-ji regarding the possibility of their compiling a Hua Miao-English Dictionary. Wang Ming-ji had already done a considerable amount of work in grouping Miao words written in the Pollard script, and the Parsons translated and annotated these words and phrases.

Alexander Russell was skipper of various vessels based in Fiji including the John Hunt and the Meda. These ships helped supply missionaries in the region.

Samuel Pollard was born in Camelford on 20 April 1864, the son of Samuel Pollard snr., a preacher with the Bible Christian Church. Samuel Pollard jnr. also entered the Ministry of the Bible Christian Church. In 1907 the Bible Christian Church united with other sections of Methodism to form the United Methodist Church. Samuel Pollard went to China in 1886. He attended the Ganking Language School in 1887. In 1888 he was posted to Yunnan. From 1905 he worked in Miao Country amongst the Miao people. His work there was evangelical, but he was also responsible for developing a unique phonetic script to translate the New Testament into the Miao language (Hua Miao). He died of typhoid fever in Miao Country on 16 September 1915. Further reading: R Elliott Kendall, Eyes of the Earth: the Diary of Samuel Pollard (1954); W A Grist, Samuel Pollard: Pioneer Missionary in China (Taipei, 1971).

Harry Undy was born in 1932. He joined the London Missionary Society in 1959. He worked in Southern Rhodesia until 1974 (continuing work with the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa from its inception in 1967). Amongst his roles in Southern Rhodesia he taught at Hope Fountain. He married Sheila Cheetham in 1954.

The Rev J Martin was a missionary in China, possibly with the Church Missionary Society.

Roger Virgoe was appointed as Lecturer in History at the University of Khartoum, the Sudan, in July 1961. He remained there until 1964. He and his colleagues were witness to the role of the University in political events in the Sudan, in the 1960s.

By the early 1960s there was considerable opposition to the military government established by the Commander-in-Chief of the Sudanese Army, General Ibrahim Abbud. In the coup d'état of 1958, he had dissolved all political parties and set up the Supreme Council of Armed Forces. The policies of the regime were most fiercely opposed in southern Sudan where, in 1963, a revolt broke out against the imposition of Arab rule led by the Anya Nya (a southern Sudanese guerilla organisation).

In October 1964, students at the University of Khartoum held a meeting - in defiance of a government prohibition - to condemn government action in southern Sudan and denounce the military regime. Demonstrations followed, leading to violent clashes with the police during which one student was killed and several injured. A 'National Front' was formed to oppose the government, led by university staff and professionals. The headquarters of the organisation was based at the University. As disorder spread, Abbud was forced to dissolve the ruling Council and resign his position as Head of State. A transitional government was appointed, and elections were held in 1965 to form a representative government.

John Emmett Woodall was born on 1 January 1904. He attended Hyde County School between 1915 and 1922. From 1922 to 1927 he attended Manchester University, graduating in 1926 with a BA in French, geography and history. In 1927 he took a Teacher's Diploma course. In the same year he was appointed to the staff of Tientsin Grammar School (TGS), where he became Assistant Master in charge of geography and sports. From 1934 until 1937 he was Assistant Headmaster, and in 1937 he took the post of Headmaster of TGS. When the Japanese occupied the School in December 1941, Woodall continued classes in various locations around Tientsin, in what he termed the 'Catacombs School'. In 1943, he and his family were interned at Lung Hwa Internment Camp. In September 1945, they were repatriated and returned to England. In 1946, Woodall went to Sudan as a Lecturer at the Institute of Education at Duiem, and he later became Head Master of Atar School. Following the country's independence and a mutiny in the South, he escaped with his family into Uganda in 1955. He worked at a teacher training college at Katshina, Northern Nigeria, 1956-1960. Following Nigerian independence, Woodall went to Uganda as Education Secretary to the Church of Buganda. He returned to Guernsey in 1962, following illness (cancer). In 1977, he attended the first re-union of former TGS pupils, in Vancouver. In the following years he attended many such gatherings in London, Australia and America. In 1981 he re-visited Tientsin with a group of former pupils. He died on 5 January 1987. He was married to Daphne Payne, a former student at the TGS. They had two sons and a daughter.

The Tientsin School was founded by the Tientsin School Association in 1905. Its object was 'to promote the education, through the medium of the English language, of those children of Tientsin and the country dependent on Tientsin for whom English is the native language'. In spring 1918, the Tientsin School Association transferred the school to the British Municipal Council, at which point it became known as the Tientsin Grammar School (TGS). In 1930, control of the school was placed in the hands of the Trustees for Foreign Education, and responsibility for administration fell to a Committee of Management, elected annually by the ratepayers.

The school offered an education to fit pupils for the large public schools in England, and for business careers in the Far East. TGS became the North China Centre for the Cambridge Local Examinations. The first Cambridge Local Examinations were held in 1924. The first Head Master of TGS was H J Turner. In 1926, Alec Hay took up the post, with S Yeates as Assistant Head Master. Yeates became Head Master in 1927, and in 1937 John Emmett Woodall took up the post.

On 8 December 1941, the Japanese occupied the British Concession of Tientsin. On the same day, Japanese soldiers entered the school building and the pupils were dismissed. TGS ceased to be a school for English speaking Tientsiners, and within a few weeks had been converted to a Japanese girls' school. Classes continued for some time under Woodall, in what he termed the 'Catacombs School', in a church hall, dining rooms and garages. However, within three months, the Japanese had ordered Woodall to cease all educational activities. Classes for school children did continue within the internment camps. The School building and grounds were given to Chiang Kai Shek in the Anglo Chinese Treaty of 1943; the Chinese Nationalists took possession after VJ Day, and four years later Mao Tse Tung took control of Tientsin.

Thomas Beighton: born at Ednaston, Derbyshire, 1790; studied at Gosport; appointed to the Malacca mission of the London Missionary Society (LMS); ordained at Derby, 1817; married Abigail Tobitt; sailed to Malacca via Madras with his wife, 1818; stationed at Penang, 1819; carried out missionary work in Penang, the Malayan Peninsula, and the Queda coast, particularly educational work and translation; responsible for the mission printing press at Penang, which produced materials in Malay and English; died in Penang, 1844. Publications: various Christian texts published in Malay, 1836-1841.

Abigail Beighton (née Tobitt): born, 1791; engaged in missionary work in female education; returned to England, 1846; died at Barnet, 1879.

Born, 1888; educated at the Perse Grammar School; Christ's College, Cambridge (Senior Scholar); first class, Classical Tripos Part I, 1909; first class, Oriental Languages Tripos, 1910; first class, Classical Tripos Part II, 1911; awarded the Brotherton Memorial Sanskrit Prize; elected Fellow of Christ's College, 1912; Indian Educational Service Lecturer in Sanskrit at Queen's College, Benares, 1913; Wilson Philological Lecturer, Bombay University, 1914; served with the 2nd/3rd Queen Alexandra's Own Gurkha Rifles in Palestine and India, 1915-1919; awarded the Military Cross; twice mentioned in despatches; Examiner, Oriental Languages Tripos and Classical Tripos Part II, Cambridge; Professor of Indian Linguistics, Benares Hindu University, 1920-1922; Wilson Philological Lecturer, Bombay University, 1922; Professor of Sanskrit, School of Oriental Studies, University of London, 1922-1954; Philological Society Honorary Treasurer, 1931-1962, and President, 1939-1943; Director of the School of Oriental Studies, from 1938 the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), 1937-1957; under his Directorship the first department of the languages and cultures of Africa in a British university was begun, and the School moved from the City of London to Bloomsbury; during the Second World War, following his warnings that the forces lacked sufficient personnel trained in Asian languages, SOAS trained servicemen in Chinese and Japanese for intelligence work; elected Fellow of the British Academy, 1942; instrumental in the appointment of the Scarborough Commission (which was to recommend expanded provision in British universities for the study of Asia and Africa), 1944; subsequently engaged in implementing the Commission's recommendations at SOAS; Knight, 1950; Honorary Fellow, Christ's College, Cambridge, 1950; Royal Asiatic Society President, 1952-1955, Gold Medallist, 1953, and Honorary Vice-President, 1963; retired as Professor, 1954; Emeritus Professor, 1954; Honorary Fellow, SOAS, 1957; Honorary Fellow, Deccan College, Poona; member of the Inter-Services Committee on Language Training, Linguists' Committee of Ministry of Labour and National Service, Colonial Social Science Research Council, Advisory Committee on the Humanities of the British Council, Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies, Treasury sub-committee for studentships in foreign languages and cultures, and University Grants Committee sub-committee on Oriental and African Studies; member of various overseas learned societies in Europe, America and Asia; recipient of numerous medals, honorary degrees, and awards; died, 1983. Publications: various works on linguistic subjects, including Indo-Aryan languages, among them A Comparative and Etymological Dictionary of the Nepali Language (1931), and A Comparative Dictionary of the Indo-Aryan Languages (1966), with Indexes by his wife Lady Dorothy Rivers Turner (1969) and a Phonetic analysis (1971), and the posthumously-published Addenda, ed J C Wright (1985).

Born in Galloway, 1907; educated at Wimbledon College; Merton College, Oxford; Assistant Director of the Oxford Archaeological Survey of Nubia, 1929-1934; involved in the discovery, excavation and publication of 4th- and 5th-century AD burial mounds at Ballana and Qustul; Field Director, Oxford University Expeditions to Sudan, 1934-1937; carried out excavations at Kawa, Sudan; Boston and Philadelphia Museums, 1937; Tweedie Fellowship in Archaeology and Anthropology, Edinburgh University, 1937-1939; exploratory journeys, Eastern Sudan and Aden Protectorate, 1938-1939; Territorial Army Reserve of Officers Captain, General Staff, 1939; Major, 1941; Lieutenant-Colonel, 1943; Joint Staffs, Offices of Cabinet and Ministry of Defence, 1942-1945; Editor, Geographical Journal, 1945-1978; Librarian, Royal Geographical Society, and subsequently Secretary; Honorary Lieutenant-Colonel, 1957; CMG, 1958; President, British Institute in Eastern Africa, 1961-1981; visited the Aksumite port of Adulis, on the Eritrean coast, 1960s; President (Section E), British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1961-1962; Governor, Imperial College of Science and Technology, 1962-1981; member of the Court of Arbitration, Argentine-Chile Frontier Case, 1965-1968 (Leader, Field Mission, 1966); member of the Secretary of State for Transport's Advisory Committee on Landscape Treatment of Trunk Roads (Deputy Chairman, 1970-1980), 1968-1981; member of the United Nations Register of fact-finding experts from 1968; member of Court, Exeter University, 1969-1980; KCMG, 1972; Founder's Medal, Royal Geographical Society, 1975; British Academy/Leverhulme Visiting Professor, Cairo, 1976; Mortimer Wheeler Lecturer, British Academy, 1977; Jubilee Medal, 1977; Honorary Vice-President, Royal Geographical Society, from 1981; Honorary Life President and Honorary Member, British Institute in Eastern Africa, 1981-1999; Honorary President, Sudan Archaeological Research Society, 1992; Fellow, University College London, and Imperial College of Science and Technology; Honorary Fellow, School of Oriental and African Studies, and American Geographical Society; Honorary Member, Geographical Societies of Paris, Vienna, and Washington, Royal Institute of Navigation, Institut d'Egypte, and International Society for Nubian Studies (Patron); Knight Cross of the Order of St Olav, Norway; MLitt, Oxon; died, 1999. Publications: Some Roman Mummy Tickets [1933?]; Christianity and the Kura'an [1934]; A Sudanese of the Saite Period (1934); Notes on the Topography of the Christian Nubian Kingdoms [1935]; The Oxford University Excavations in Nubia, 1934-1935 [1935]; with Walter B Emery, The Excavations and Survey between Wadies-Sebua and Adindan, 1929-1931 (1935); with Walter B Emery, The Royal Tombs of Ballana and Qustal (1938); The Oxford University Excavations at Firka (1939); contributed to The Temples of Kawa, i: The Inscriptions (1949), ii: History and Archaeology of the Site (1955); The White Road: a survey of polar exploration (1959); A History of Polar Exploration (1962); chapters in Miles Frederick Laming Macadam, Temples of Kawa (undated); papers on archaeology, historical and political geography, and exploration, in scientific and other publications.

In the late 19th century European powers including Italy sought to extend their influence in east Africa. Italy extended its influence sufficiently to proclaim the colony of Eritrea in the 1880s. Dispute over the meaning of a treaty signed by Menelik II (d 1913) of Ethiopia with Italy (1889), whereby Italy claimed it had been given a protectorate over Ethiopia, led to an Italian invasion in 1895 which resulted in Italy being defeated. Under the Treaty of Addis Ababa (1896) Italy recognized the independence of Ethiopia, but retained its Eritrean colonial base.

Nafka is a town in north-western Eritrea, a commercial centre of the Habab people and the site of an Italian Residenza.

Born, 1795; married Anna Wale (d 1859); appointed by the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society to St Vincent, West Indies, 1824; stationed in the West Indies, 1825-1838; minister at Retford, 1838-1840; minister at Belper, 1840-1842; returned to missionary work, serving in Demerara and the West Indies, 1842-1851; returned to England, serving as minister at Launceston, Kingsbridge, Ashburton and Bridgewater, 1851-1857; returned as missionary to Demerara, 1857-1861; missionary to Antigua, 1862-1866; returned to England and died at Weston-super-Mare, 1866.

Lionel Henry (Harry) Lamb was born on 9 July 1900. He was the son of Sir Harry Harling Lamb (1857-1948), GBE, KCMG, a member of the British diplomatic service, and his wife Sabina (née Maissa). He was educated at Winchester College, and at Queen's College, Oxford, from 1918 to 1920. In December 1921 Lionel Lamb was appointed to HM Consular Service in China, a time of turbulence in China which saw the rise of the Communist Party and later the Nationalist Party (KMT). In 1935, while the National Government ruled, he was appointed as Consul (Grade II) and was stationed first in Shanghai until 1937 - the year of the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War - and then in Peking until 1940. Whilst in Peking, he was promoted to Consul (Grade I). He returned to Shanghai as Superintending Consul and Assistant Chinese Secretary in 1940. He was interned at Shanghai by the Japanese from December 1941 to August 1942. In 1943 he was transferred to St Paul-Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, for a short period, returning to the British Embassy in Chunking as Chinese Counsellor in 1945. From 1947 to 1949, coinciding with the last years of the civil war in China, he was HM Minister at Nanking. After the establishment of the Communist regime and the People's Republic of China, he was appointed to the post of Charg d'Affairs at Peking, which he held from 1951 to 1953. His last appointment before he retired from diplomatic service was as Ambassador to Switzerland from 1953 to 1958. During his career he received various honours: OBE 1944, KCMG 1953 (CMG 1948). In 1927 he married Jean Fawcett (née MacDonald). They had one son, Alistair. Sir Lionel Lamb died on 27 July 1992. Appointments: Vice-Consul in China, 1925; Vice-Consul in China, First Grade, 1934; Consul in China, Second Grade, 1935; Consul in China, 1938; Minister (Foreign Service Officer Grade V), 1947; Officer of the Fourth Grade of the Foreign Service, 1948; Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary at Berne, 1953.

Born in the China Seas, 1878; spent his early years in Aberdeen; moved to England as a young man; married Harriet Gordon Fraser, 1914; three children; worked as a banker in Liverpool; Presbyterian Church of England elder; interested in China, and his Chinese friends included those from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, the Chinese Consulate, and business; involved in Christian universities in China; died, 1972.

Born in Loftus, Cleveland, 1884; her family were Primitive Methodists; the family lived at Horwich, Lancashire, 1886-1889; subsequently brought up in Middlesbrough; worked in Scarborough as a children's nurse; a clerk at Stockton Forge, Stockton-on-Tees; trained as a nurse at York County Hospital, 1913; served in military hospitals during World War One (1914-1918); awarded the Royal Red Cross medal; worked at the Welsh Hospital, Netley, Southampton; accepted by the the Primitive Methodist Missionary Society (PMMS, succeeded after 1932 by the Methodist Missionary Society), 1919; trained at Kingsmead Missionary Training College, 1920; a pioneering nurse in eastern Nigeria, 1921-1944; first matron at the Methodist Hospital, Ama Achara; temporary service in South Africa to establish a training hospital in Thaba Nchu, South Africa, 1946-1949; returned to Middlesborough; unmarried; died, 1978. For further information see her nephew Frank Godfrey's biography, Emily: the Relentless Nurse (Teamprint, Loughborough [1999]).

Francis Light was born in Suffolk. Although his date of birth is unknown, his baptism is recorded as 15 December 1740. He was educated at Seckford's Grammar School, Woodbridge from 1747. He entered service as a surgeon's servant on the HMS Mars in February 1754, and subsequently served as midshipman on the HMS Captain, the HMS Dragon and in 1761 aboard the HMS Arrogant. His employment with the Navy ended in 1763. In 1765 he embarked on a journey bound for Madras and Bombay aboard the East India Company's ship 'Clive'. In India, he secured command of a 'Country Ship' (owned in India and engaged in trade in Eastern waters) belonging to a Madras firm of merchants, Jourdain, Sulivan & Desouza. Light was posted to Kedah with the company, where he quickly attained an influential position with the Sultan of Kedah. From 1771, he was involved in various proposals to cede land belonging to Kedah to the British. In 1786 Light was able to report to the Bengal Government that he had persuaded the Sultan to cede the Island of Penang (Pulau Penang) to the East India Company for $6000 a year. The offer was accepted and in June 1786 Light was appointed first Superintendent of the new British colony. He landed with his forces in July 1786, and on 11 August the colony was christened Prince of Wales Island. He combined his position as Superintendent with his role as principal merchant.

By 1791, the Sultan of Kedah found that his revenues were being seriously diminished by the growing prosperity of Penang, and he demanded additional income to compensate for this loss. He simultaneously made preparations to seize the island, constructing a fort at Prye. Light obtained reinforcements from Bengal and attacked the fort, capturing it on 12 April 1791. The Sultan sued for peace and a treaty was agreed. The Sultan was granted an annual payment of $6000, on condition that the English could continue in possession of Penang. The settlement entered a period of relative quiet during which Light oversaw its administration, with periodic requests to the Bengal Government for a larger administrative staff.

With the beginning of the French War with England in February 1793, and the threat that this posed to English trade in the East, Light called for the reinforcement of troops in Indian waters. He also set about rebuilding Penang's defences. Naval reinforcements arrived in Madras at the end of 1793. The French attempt to capture Penang did not take place until 1796, after Light's death.

Light married Martina Rozells, by whom he had 3 daughters and 2 sons. His eldest son, William Light, became the first Surveyor General of Southern Australia and founder of the city of Adelaide. Francis Light died from a Malarial attack on 21 October 1794.

Further reading: A F Steuert, The Founders of Penang and Adelaide: a Short Sketch of the Lives of Francis and William Light (London, 1901); H P Clodd, Malaya's First British Pioneer: the Life of Francis Light (London, 1948).

A British expedition which embarked in 1787 to start a penal colony in Australia settled at Port Jackson (later Sydney). The indigenous people were the Eora. William Dawes (1762-1836) was Lieutenant (Royal Marines) on HMS Sirius, the flagship of the 'First Fleet'. He was a pioneering student of the language of New South Wales. His interests also included astronomy and in Australia he directed the building of an observatory under the instructions of the Board of Longitude. For further information see the entry by his friend, Zachary Macaulay, in the Australian Dictionary of National Biography, volume i: 1788-1850 (1983). See also A Currer Jones, William Dawes, RM, 1762 to 1836: a sketch of his life, work, and explorations (1787) in the first expedition to New South Wales (1930), and Arthur Phillip, The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay [with] ... plans and views ... by Lieut Dawes ... (1789).

John Comyn Higgins was born on 21 May 1882. He was educated at Bradfield, and Brasenose College, Oxford. He entered the Indian Civil Service in 1905. From 1907-1908 he was Assistant Magistrate and Collector, Bakarganj, Bengal. He became Sub-Divisional Officer, firstly in Jahat, Assam, 1908-1909 and then at Madaripur, Bengal, 1909-1910. From 1910-1917 Higgins was Vice-President and then President of the Manipur State Darbar. He became a Political Agent for the Manipur State (1917-1933) and worked as a political officer on the Kuki Punitive Operation, 1917-1919. From 1920-1923 he was Deputy Commissioner for Nowgong, Assam, and in 1934 became Commissioner for the Assam valley. In 1939 he was a Member of the Assam Revenue Tribunal. He retired in 1942 from the Civil Service and took a Commission with the Indian Engineers. He resigned from the Commission in September 1942. From 1942-1944 he was a Civil Liaison Officer with the Army and subsequently joined the Assam Public Service Commission, 1944-1945. He died on 8 December 1952.

In 1903 the Educational Committee of the British Homeopathic Association in conjunction with the London Homeopathic Hospital formed a Missionary Sub-committee to promote a course of instruction for non-medical missionaries. This committee included both Dr. George Burford and Dr. Edwin A. Neatby, who was to become the first Honorary Secretary and later Dean of the Missionary School of Medicine.

The idea from the outset was that the School's courses would be flexible, in order to cater for the varying needs and experience of the students, some of whom were on home leave from the field, and others who had yet to receive a posting overseas. It was emphatically not designed to train doctors and nurses, but to provide a background of medical knowledge to missionaries who might be working considerable distances from professional medical care. Although students came from a wide variety of missionary societies, there was some opposition at first from religious organisations who felt that homeopathy was not compatible with Christian beliefs.

The first course began on 11 January 1904, with 24 students taking part in the first session. A format soon evolved whereby the course covered three terms and featured lectures and instruction on practical medicine; surgery; diseases of the eye, ear, nose, and throat; children's diseases; diseases of the skin; tropical diseases; dentistry; first aid; anatomy and physiology; practical anaesthetics; women's diseases; nursing and midwifery (the latter three courses were provided for women only). Students received additional lectures from doctors at other institutions such as the London School of Tropical Medicine. This course structure proved popular enough to remain unchanged for 75 years.

In 1977 a three month course was introduced but demand for the courses continued to fall during the 1980s, when a large percentage of the students who did attend were from other European countries. In 1992 the organisation changed its name to Medical Services Ministries. There were further experiments with 4-week courses for qualified nurses but in 1996 the MSM decided to leave its premises at 2 Powis Place, its home since the 1920s, and provide a more ad hoc service by tailor-made courses to individual demand.

Born in Worcester, England, 1856; educated at King's School, Worcester; won a scholarship to Hertford College, Oxford; 3rd class in classical honour moderations, 1876; enrolled in the Medical Faculty, Edinburgh University, 1879-1880; did not complete his medical education; became a deacon, 1880; served the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in East Africa, 1880-1884; began to learn Swahili soon after his arrival and became acquainted with eminent Swahili scholars there; collected Swahili manuscripts, both poetry and prose; returned to East Africa as CMS missionary, 1885-1889; ordained priest, 1885; travelled extensively among the Giryama (north of Mombasa) and studied Giryama (a Bantu language closely related to Swahili); married Catherine Tesseyman (d 1959) in Hull, 1892; served again in East Africa, 1892-1896; returned to England, 1896; posted to Cairo, 1898-1900; sent to Khartoum as a chaplain, but returned on medical grounds a few months later, 1903; ended his connection with the CMS, 1904; subsequently held a succession of clerical appointments, the last at Halton Holgate, Lincolnshire; retained his interest in Swahili, examining for the War Office and translating for the Salvation Army; died at Bath, 1927. Publications include: African Aphorisms; or, Saws from Swahili-land (1891); Giryama Vocabulary and Collections (1891); The Groundwork of the Swahili Language (1898); contributed to Mrs F Burt's Swahili Grammar and Vocabulary (1910); contributed to C H Stigand's A Grammar of Dialectic Changes in the Kiswahili Language (1915); Ukumbosho wa Uongozi (Memorandum of Guidance for East African Field Officers) [1925]; translations of the Bible into Swahili and Giryama, published 1889-1909.

Employed in the Kenya administration; collector and editor of Swahili manuscripts; his research into Swahili was extensively based on correspondence and collaboration with other scholars, notably Sir Mbarak Ali Hinawy (Liwali of the Coast), Muhammed bin Abu Bakr Kijumwa of Lamu, and Alice Werner; his interests included the history of Swahili poetry, translation of Swahili poetry, and the history of the east African coast; of his verse translations from Swahili only a small proportion were published; his Azania Press (at Medstead, Hampshire) published Swahili literature; died in Mombasa, 1944. Publications: edited The Azanian Classics (2 volumes, Azania Press, Medstead, 1932-1934); with Alice Werner, The Advice of Mwana Kupona upon the Wifely Duty (Azania Press, Medstead, 1934); Diwani ya Muyaka bin Haji al-Ghassaniy. Pamoja na khabari za maisha yake ambazo zimehadithiwa ni W Hichens (Johannesburg, 1940). Identification of the collector of these manuscripts as the businessman William Lionel Hichens (1874-1940), suggested by some bibliographic data, is uncertain.

The series 'Plain Tales from the Raj' was produced by Michael Mason for BBC Radio 4 and first broadcast in 1974. The British interviews were largely conducted by Charles Allen, with further interviews conducted in India by Prakash Mirchandani and Mark Tully.

The British in India Oral Archive Project, under the British in India Oral Archive Committee at the School of Oriental and African Studies, continued the work of recording the experiences of inhabitants of India begun for the BBC Radio 4 series 'Plain Tales from the Raj' (1974). The bulk of the interviews were carried out in 1975-1976, with a few additional interviews in 1984 and 1987.

The radio series 'India: A People Partitioned' for the BBC World Service was compiled and presented by Andrew Whitehead and produced by Zina Rohan. It was among the programmes commissioned to mark the 50th anniversary of India and Pakistan's independence and was broadcast in 1997. The interviews were largely conducted by Whitehead, but a few were carried out by Anuradha Awasthi. The series was broadcast again in 2000 and the fifth programme, 'Unfinished Business', was re-made, including further material on India-Pakistan relations. Andrew Whitehead was based in Delhi as BBC World Service correspondent for south Asia.

The Presbyterian Church of England (PCE) Foreign Missions Committee, or the English Presbyterian Mission, was established in 1843, as one of the first committees of the reconstituted Presbyterian Church. It resolved at its Synod to 'institute foreign missions in connection with this Church as speedily as possible'; however, the first missionary was not appointed until 1847. China was chosen as the first mission field for the English Presbyterian Mission, due in part to the interest engendered by the Opium Wars and in part to the fact that the Free Church of Scotland were unable to set up a Presbyterian mission in China at that time. In 1847 William Burns was appointed, and worked firstly in Hong Kong, moving on to Amoy in 1850.

The first mission field for the English Presbyterian Mission was Amoy (South Fukien) established by Burns and Dr James Young. Work was extended to the Swatow (Lingtung) area of East Shandong. George Smith was the first permanent PCE missionary in the area from 1858, and the Swatow Mission Hospital was established in 1863, while the Women's Missionary Association was founded in 1878. The mission field in China was further extended inland with the establishment of the Hakka mission in 1879.

Work began in Formosa (Taiwan) in 1865, and it was quickly designated as a children's field. Medical and education work was carried out by missionaries Dr Maxwell and Thomas Barclay, the latter founding the Tainan Theological College. The growing power of Japan in the 1930s led to a reduction of PCE staff in Formosa, and missionaries finally withdrew in 1940. In the post-war period however the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan was able to recover, and the relationship between the Church and PCE has undergone profound change.

Whereas the Formosa mission extended out from Amoy, the extension of PCE mission work to the Singapore and Malaysia field was as a response to calls from missionaries in the Swatow and Hakka fields, and from the expatriate Presbyterian congregation of Orchard Road, Singapore. John Bethune Cook began work in the area in 1881, and retired in 1925. The fall of Singapore and the Japanese occupation effectively ended the PCE mission, a small number of missionaries were interned and the Church cut off from mission support. In the period of ecumenical change following the War, PCE missionaries worked primarily at a congregational level and in local schools.

The withdrawl of the PCE from China, as for other missionary societies, is also a phenomenon of the post-war period. Despite the optimistic attempts to re-establish the missions after the Japanese occupation, the situation became increasingly difficult and the PCE, along with other missionary societies, withdrew from China between 1949 and 1953.

Work of the English Presbyterian mission was not confined to East and South East Asia, and in 1862, a mission was established at in the district of Rajshahi, Bengal, India (now Bangladesh). The mission was started by Rev. Behari Lal Singh who was an agent of the Free Church of Scotland's mission in Calcutta. The first English Presbyterian missionary Dr Donald Morison arrived three years after his death in 1878. Medical and educational work was carried out, with limited successes, and the mission was both understaffed and often in danger of being closed down. In the period after the partition of India in 1947, the mission increased its staffing and developed a hospital, nursing school and Girls High School. Work was also carried out among the Santal tribal people. However, the civil war between East and West Pakistan, which led to the establishment of Bangladesh in the 1960s, affected the mission field, which is now the Rajshahi deanery of the Church of Bangladesh.

In 1972 the Presbyterian Church of England joined with the Congregational Church in England and Wales, a constituent body of the Council of the Congregational Council for World Mission, to form the United Reformed Church. The CCWM changed its name to the Council for World Mission as a result of the inclusion of both Congregational and Reformed members. In 1981 the URC joined together with the Re-formed Churches of Christ.

Further information on the history of the Presbyterian Church of England Foreign Missions Committee can be found in the following works: Edward Band, Working His Purpose Out: the history of the English Presbyterian Mission 1847-1947 (London, 1948); Reginald Fenn, Working God's Purpose Out 1947-1972 (London, 1997); George Hood, Pilgrims in Mission: Celebrating 150 years of the English Presbyterian Mission (Alnwick, 1998); George Hood, Neither bang nor whimper: the end of a missionary era in China (Singapore, 1991).

Whereas the Presbyterian Church of England Foreign Missions Committee was established in 1843, and was sending missionaries and their wives out to China from 1847, it was not until 1878 that the first single woman missionary was appointed to the mission field.

Whereas the wives of missionaries had played a vital role in education and mission work amongst women and girls, the recognition that full-time women missionaries were required to dedicate themselves to educational work, supervising schools and training teachers, led to the establishment of the Women's Missionary Association (WMA). A Synod resolution of 1877 stated 'They are glad that the efforts are being made on behalf of the females of the East, and would welcome the formation of special Associations on the part of the ladies of the Church for the encouragement of this work'.

Miss Catherine Maria Ricketts, a financially independent young woman, was appointed as the first single woman missionary, to Swatow, China. Her appointment in 1878 led to the Women's Missionary Association of the Presbyterian Church of England taking shape, and it was formally founded in December of the same year. Miss Ricketts was quickly followed by the first WMA missionary, Miss E Murray, who was appointed to Formosa in 1880.

The first President of the WMA was Mrs Hugh Matheson, the wife of the Convenor of the Foreign Missions Committee. Branches were quickly formed in many of the London Presbyterian Churches, and in May 1879, the first issue of the WMA periodical Our sisters in other lands: a record of mission work among women was published. Forty two branches of the Women's Missionary Association had been established by 1880. In terms of its home administration, the WMA functioned as an independent unit within the overall framework of the Presbyterian Church of England until 1925, when a union between the Foreign Missions Committee and the Women's Missionary Association was ratified. WMA became part of the FMC and women were given equal representation with men on the FMC Executive. By 1932 a Joint Advisory Committee had been set up by the FMC to deal with matters relating to the mission field, leaving the WMA its home organization, its fundraising function and the training of its candidates.

In terms of the mission field, the women who worked for the WMA concentrated on evangelical work and teaching, primarily if not exclusively among women and girls. Many schools were set up by WMA missionaries, and both nurses and female doctors were also sent out to work in local clinics and hospitals. Staff also undertook the training and supervision of local teachers and worked closely with local people.

The Women's Missionary Association was based in the same areas at the Presbyterian Church of England Foreign Missions Committee. They worked in Swatow (Lingtung) in Southern China, with stations at Wukingfu and Hakka; in Amoy (South Fukien) at Amoy, Chuanchow, Po-sun, and Yungchun; and in Formosa (Taiwan). They also worked in Singapore and Malaysia, and Rajshahi on East Bengal, India (later Bangladesh), with branch stations at Naogaon.

The evangelical revival which produced, in England, the London Missionary Society and, in Switzerland, the Basel Mission, brought about in 1822 the foundation of the Société des Missions Evangéliques chez les peuples non-chrétiens á Paris (SMEP), a Protestant organisation known in English as the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society. Swiss and English evangelists active in France were instrumental in its foundation. Although its goal was to propagate the Gospel among non-Christians, it did not initially send missionaries overseas, but by 1829 the Society, urged by John Philip of the London Missionary Society, sent its first three missionaries to Southern Africa. Initial difficulties were followed by the foundation of a mission station in what is now Lesotho, where the missionaries Eugène Casalis and later Adolphe Mabille became advisers to the Basuto king Moeshoeshoe. Following 20 years service in Basutoland, François Coillard led an expedition north to found a new mission on the Zambezi River in the territory of the Barotse people, serving there until his death in 1904. In 1863 the SMEP started a mission in the French colony of Senegal, and later the colony of Gabon, where its missionaries replaced American Presbyterians uncomfortable under the French administration. German missions in Togo and Cameroun were taken over by the SMEP after World War One. In the Pacific, English-French rivalry resulted in France's annexation of New Caledonia, Tahiti, and the Loyalty Islands, where SMEP missionaries replaced missionaries of the London Missionary Society. In France the SMEP publicised its missionary work through speaking tours by missionaries on leave from their mission fields, pioneered by Casalis in 1850. Auxiliary committees were established and help solicited from interested parties in France and elsewhere. The SMEP founded its Bulletin in 1825 and the publication Journal des Missions Evangéliques in 1826. In addition to its evangelistic work, the Society also promoted better sanitary and agricultural techniques. The SMEP ceased to exist following the formation in 1971 of the Communauté d'Action Apostolique (CEVAA) and the Département Evangélique Français d'Action Apostolique (DEFAP).

William Mackinnon was born on 13 March 1823 in Campbeltown, Argyleshire. He was educated in Campbeltown and trained in the grocery trade there. Early in his life he went to Glasgow, where he was employed in a silk warehouse and afterwards in the office of a merchant engaged in the Eastern Trade.

MacKinnon began his business career in 1847, when he joined an old school fellow Robert MacKenzie who was engaged in the coasting trade in the Bay of Bengal. Together they founded the firm of Mackinnon, MacKenzie & Company. On 29 September 1856, the Calcutta and Burmah Steamship Navigation Company was founded, mainly through Mackinnon's exertions. In 1862 the rapidly expanding company was renamed the British India Steamship Navigation Company. What had begun as a single steamer plying between Calcutta and Rangoon, became one of the greatest shipping companies in the world. Under Mackinnon's guidance it developed and created a vast trade around the coast of India and Burma, the Persian Gulf and East Coast of Africa, besides establishing subsidiary lines of connection with Great Britain, the Dutch East Indies and Australia. In 1873, the company established a mail service between Aden and Zanzibar. Mackinnon gained the confidence of Sultan Seyyid Barghash and in 1878 opened negotiations with him for the lease of a territory extending 1,150 miles along the coastline from Tungi to Warsheik, and extending inland as far as the eastern province of the Congo Free State. The British Government however, declined to sanction the concession, which if ratified would have secured for England the whole of what became German East Africa. In 1886 the British Foreign Minister availed himself of Mackinnon's influence to secure the coast line from Wanga to Kipini, a charter was granted and the Imperial British East Africa Company was formally incorporated on 18 April 1888 with Mackinnon as Chairman. The territory was finally taken over by the British Government on 1 July 1895, and became British East Africa. Mackinnon was also instrumental in promoting and funding Sir Henry Morton Stanley's expedition for the relief of Emin Pasha in 1886.

In 1858 Mackinnon became a Director of the City of Glasgow Bank, resigning that position in 1870, eight years before the Bank's complete collapse. Mackinnon did not escape from the consequences of the failure of the Bank, one of the most serious crises in modern Scottish financial history. The liquidators sued him for close to a quarter of a million pounds on a claim connected with advice Mackinnon was said to have given on American railway securities. Following protracted litigation, Mackinnon was completely exonerated by the court from the charges against him when it was demonstrated that the course of action taken by the remaining directors was contrary to his express advice.

Mackinnon was one of the chief supporters of the Free Church of Scotland. However, towards the end of his life the passage of the Declaratory Act, of which he disapproved, led to a difference of opinion between him and the leaders of the Church and he materially assisted the seceding members in the Scottish Highlands. In 1891 he founded the East African Scottish Mission.

In 1882 he was nominated C.I.E. He was created a Baronet on 15 July 1889. He married Janet Colquhoun (d 1894) on 12 May 1856. They had no children. William Mackinnon died on 22 June 1893, in the Burlington Hotel, London. He was buried at Clachan, Argyleshire.

Ernest A Findorff was Commissioner of Commerce in Belgium and UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organization) consultant in the Philippines in 1969-1970.

William Evans was born on 5 September 1860. He was attached to the Chinese Protectorate Service in 1882. He held numerous positions in Singapore and Penang before becoming Protector of Chinese, Straits Settlements in 1895. He held the position of Municipal Commissioner for Singapore for a number of stretches between 1895 and 1903. In 1911 he became Resident Councillor for Penang.

William Evans's son-in-law, Alan Custance Baker, was a member of the Malayan Civil Service from 1908-1940.

Charles Granston Richards was born in 1908. He went to Kenya in 1935 as a missionary for the Church Missionary Society, with special responsibility for the encouragement of literacy and literature among East Africans. Working through the CMS Bookshop in Nairobi, he became a publisher - for example, under the imprint of the Highway Press. In 1948, following an appraisal by Elspeth Huxley, the East African Governor's Conference decided to set up an East African Literature Bureau (EALB). Charles Richards wrote the report which led to its establishment and became its first Director. The EALB published a variety of texts, in English and in the major African languages - some of which are included in this collection. Richards remained Director of the EALB for fifteen years.

In 1963 Dr. Richards moved to the Oxford University Press to build up its publishing in East Africa, but in 1964 the OUP released him to work part-time in setting up what became the Christian Literature Fund (CLF) of the World Council of Churches. Richards was full-time Director of the CLF from 1965-1970, and of its successor, the Agency for Christian Literature Development (ACLD) from 1970-1974. The offices of the CLF were in Lausanne, but Richards was constantly 'in the field', as his Tour reports indicate. In December 1974 Dr. Richards retired as Director of the ACLD, which was then replaced by the Print Media Development Unit (PMDU) of the new World Association for Christian Communication (WACC), under the Acting Director, Reverend A. D. Manuel. Richards maintained an active association with the PMDU, and with other agencies concerned with literature and literacy. He served on the British Committee on Literacy, conducted an evaluation of the South African Bureau of Literacy, investigated the progress of the East African Venture, which he had helped to start while at the ACLD, and continued to give talks on his past work.

Agence France Presse, named in 1944, is a French news agency with its headquarters in Paris, supplying world news. It is the successor of a news agency founded in 1835.

Charles Stewart Addis was born in Edinburgh on 23 November 1861, the youngest son of the Reverend Thomas Addis, a minister of the Free Church of Scotland. He was educated at the Edinburgh Academy. Between 1876 and 1880 he worked for Peter Dowie and Co., Grain Importers of Leith.

In 1880 he joined the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) in London. In 1883 he was posted to Singapore, then to the HSBC head office in Hong Kong. In 1886 he became one of the first western bankers to reside in Peking, when he was posted there as Acting Agent. During this time, he also began his experience as a writer when he was invited to contribute material to the Chinese Times by its editor, Alexander Michie. After Peking, Addis undertook assignments in Tientsin (1889), Shanghai (1889-1891), Calcutta (1891) and Rangoon (1892). While on home leave in 1894 Addis met and married Eba McIsaac, the daughter of the Provost of Saltcoats, a small town in Scotland. They were to have thirteen children.

Following his marriage, Addis was posted to Shanghai. He was appointed Agent in Hankow (1896), Calcutta (1897), and served as Sub Manager in Shanghai (1898 and 1900). In 1905, he was appointed to the HSBC London Office as Junior Manager and also to the Board of Directors of the British and Chinese Corporation and the Chinese Central Railways. In 1908, he received his first official government appointment as British Censor of the State Bank of Morocco, a post he held until 1944. In 1911 he was appointed Senior Manager of the HSBC London Office. From 1912, he began his work to bring competing national banking syndicates together to form the Six Power China Consortium, transforming the policy of competition for loans to one of co-operation. The height of the Consortium's success came in 1913 when it issued a Reorganisation Loan to Yuan Shih-Kai's Republican Government. The British Government awarded Addis's efforts with a knighthood in that year. In 1917 he was appointed to the Cunliffe Committee on Currency and Foreign Exchanges After the War. In 1918 he became Director of the Bank of England, and in 1919 a member of the Bank's Committee of Treasury upon which the Governor of the Bank of England relied for advice. In that year he was also appointed to the Council of the Institute of Bankers and the India Currency Committee. In 1920, he served on the War Relief and China Famine Relief Committees, and visited New York to organise the Second China Consortium, which included banking groups from the USA, France, Japan and Great Britain. He was awarded a K.C.M.G. in 1921. In that year he retired as London Manager of the HSBC, but continued as Manager of the British Group of the China Consortium and Director on the Boards of the British and Chinese Corporation and the Chinese Central Railways. He was also elected President of the Institute of Bankers. In 1922, he was appointed Chairman of the London Committee of the HSBC, and attended the British Alternate Genoa Conference as the British financial expert. In 1923, he became Chairman of the Exchange Committee, Imperial Economic Conference. In 1924 he became a member of the Montagu Mission to Brazil; was appointed to the Colwyn Committee on National Debt and Taxation; gave evidence to the Chamberlain-Bradbury Committee and was appointed British representative on the General Council of the Reichsbank. In 1925, he served as a member of the China Advisory Committee, Boxer Indemnity, and in 1926, on the US Debt Committee. In 1929 he was the British Delegate on the Committee of Experts for Reparations in Paris. In 1930 he was appointed Vice-Chairman of the Bank for International Settlements, and also attended meetings of the Cabinet Economic Advisory Sub-Committee on China.

He retired from the HSBC London Committee in 1933, and in the same year became a member of the Royal Commission on Canadian Banking. In 1944 he resigned as Manager of the British group of the China Consortium and from directorships of the British and Chinese Corporation and Chinese Central Railways. He died at Frant, Sussex on 14 December 1945.

Margaret Mackeson Green was born in Eltham, Kent, on 14 July 1895. Although the First World War interrupted her studies, she gained a double first in history at Cambridge. She then went to Nigeria with a friend, where her interest in and love of Africa began. During this first visit, she helped to establish the first school in Kano.

She returned to Cambridge to read anthropology and was awarded a Leverhulme Grant to research the lives of Ibo women, among whom she lived for several years. She assisted with the production of the first published grammar of the Igbo language. Two of her own anthropological works were also published: Land Tenure in an Ibo Village (1941) and Ibo Village Affairs (1947). She was appointed Lecturer and Reader in West African Languages and Cultures at the School of Oriental and African Studies, 1939-1951.

Margaret Mackeson Green played an active role in seeking to alleviate the suffering of refugees during the Nigerian Civil War, and took a keen interest in the work of the Division of Inter-Church Aid Refugee World Service (DICARWS) of the World Council of Churches (WCC). She never married, and died in March 1979.

William Gawan Sewell was born on 6 July 1898, in Whitby, Yorkshire. He was born into an old Quaker family. He was educated at Ackworth School, Whitby County School and took his M.Sc. in chemistry at Leeds University. In 1921 he was appointed Demonstrator and Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Colour Chemistry at Leeds University. In 1922 he married Hilda Guy, a fellow student at Leeds (Botany and Education). They were to have three daughters and one son (the eldest daughter died in Chengdu at the age of seven).

In 1924 he resigned his University post to go, with his wife, to the West China Union University, Chengdu, Sichuan, as part of the Friends Foreign Mission Association (later the Friends Service Council). After a years language study he joined the Department of Chemistry, eventually becoming the Head and Associate Dean of the College of Science. In 1927 he was evacuated from Chengdu. After some time in Shanghai, he spent two terms teaching at Lingnan University, Canton, before returning to Sichuan.

From 1942 to 1945, he and his family were interned by the Japanese at Stanley, Hong Kong. After recuperation in England he returned to Chengdu in 1947. In 1949, after the establishment of the People's Republic of China, he was one of the few foreign teachers invited to stay. He continued his teaching at the West China Union University, returning to England in 1952.

After leaving China, he worked for eleven years (1952-1963) as Assistant Registrar (London Representative) of the University of Ghana (formerly the University College of the Gold Coast). He retired in 1964, and spent his time involved chiefly with China and Quaker committees. He was for several years a Vice-Chairman of the Friends Service Council, a Chairman for one year. He paid three visits to New Zealand, which gave him the opportunity of lecturing on China. In 1974 he visited eastern China. He died on 13 January 1984.

His publications (with the Edinburgh House Press) include Land and Life of China (1933); Turbid Waters (1934); China Through a College Window (1937); Strange Harmony (An Account of Internment) (1946); I Stayed in China (1966); The People of Wheelbarrow Lane (1970); China and the West: Mankind Evolving (1970).

George Wynn Brereton Huntingford was Lecturer in East African Languages and Cultures at the School of Oriental and African Studies, 1950-1966. Following his retirement, he lived in Malaga. He died in 1978.

His publications include The Eastern Tribes of the Bantu Kavirondo (1944); Elementary Lessons in Dho-Luo (1949, 1955); Nandi Work and Culture (1950); The Nandi of Kenya: Tribal Control in a Pastoral Society (1953); The Northern Nilo-Hamites (1953); The Southern Nilo-Hamites (1953); Nandi-English Vocabulary (1955); The Galla of Ethiopia (1955); The Glorious Victories of Amda Seyon, King of Ethiopia (1965); and Historical Geography of Ethiopia (completed 1969, published 1989).

Daniel George Edward Hall was born on 17 November 1891, the son of a Hertfordshire farmer, and received his early education at Hitchin Grammar School. He entered King's College, University of London, where he graduated with a first-class Honours degree in Modern History in 1916, winning the Gladstone Memorial Prize and an Inglis Studentship for postgraduate studies. After completing his Master's Degree he served with the Inns of Court Regiment during the First World War. In 1916 he found a post as Senior History Master at the Royal Grammar School, Worcester. In 1919 he moved to a similar position at Bedales School, Hampshire. In the same year, he married Helen Eugenie Banks. She had likewise been awarded the Gladstone Memorial Prize and as an undergraduate at King's had been two years junior to Hall.

In 1921, Hall was offered the Chair of History at the newly founded University of Rangoon. His energies were at first absorbed in coping with teaching courses in Western History. This involved not only teaching, but in some cases writing textbooks appropriate to the needs of his students. Within five years in Rangoon, Hall had produced three such works: Imperialism in Modern History (1923), A Brief Survey of English Constitutional History (1925), and (as co-author) The League of Nations: a Manual for University Students... in India, Burma and Ceylon (1926).

On his return to England in 1934 he became Headmaster of Caterham School. In 1949 the University of London appointed Dr. Hall to the newly established Chair in South East Asian History at the School of Oriental and African Studies. His work, the History of South East Asia, was completed and published in 1955. Following his retirement from the University of London in 1959, he became a visiting Professor at Cornell University in the United States where he spent much of his time during the next 14 years. He was also a visiting Professor at the University of British Columbia during 1964-1965; Monash University, 1965-1966 and the University of Michigan, 1966. He died on 12 October 1979.

Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf was born on 22 June 1909 in Vienna, Austria. In 1927 he entered the Theresianische Akademie of the University of Vienna, where he studied anthropology and archaeology. Fürer-Haimendorf received his Dr Phil in 1931, based on a doctoral thesis comparing the social organisation of the hill tribes of Assam and north-west Burma. From 1931 until 1934 he worked as an Assistant Lecturer at Vienna University.

The opportunity for fieldwork came when Fürer-Haimendorf was awarded the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship for 1935-1937. In 1935, he undertook a period of post-doctoral study at the London School of Economics, where he attended seminars held by Bronislaw Malinowski, and met many future British anthropologists such as Raymond Firth, Meyer Fortes and Audrey Richards. In 1936, Fürer-Haimendorf left London to work among the Nagas of Assam along the north-eastern frontier of India. In this work, Fürer-Haimendorf was greatly assisted by the anthropologist J P Mills, who was then Deputy Commissioner of the Naga Hills District. He returned to Austria in 1937 after thirteen months of fieldwork.

Fürer-Haimendorf was en route to the Naga Hills for a second period of research when the Second World War broke out. Being in possession of a German passport, he was arrested and interned as an enemy alien (although his internment was carried out with great courtesy, due to his excellent connections in the British colonial administration). He was subsequently confined to Hyderabad State, under the jurisdiction of the Nizam, for the duration of the War. During this time he was able to undertake important fieldwork amongst the tribal groups of Hyderabad, including the Chenchus, Reddis and Raj Gonds. From 1944 to 1945 he was appointed Special Officer and Assistant Political Officer to the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA), and was permitted to carry out fieldwork amongst the Apa-Tanis of the Arunachal Pradesh area of Assam. From 1945 to 1949, Fürer-Haimendorf was appointed to the position of Adviser for Tribes and Backward Classes to the Nizam's Government, to deal with the issue of land reform in Hyderabad. In the course of this work, he set up various educational and other schemes for tribal peoples, with the aim of preserving and safeguarding indigenous cultures and languages. He also accepted a teaching appointment as Professor of Anthropology at Osmania University, Hyderabad.

Between 1976 and 1980, Fürer-Haimendorf undertook a series of investigations on the changes that had occurred among the tribal populations he had originally studied in the 1940s (as he termed it, a 're-study'). The main focus of this work was Andhra Pradesh, and the Gonds of the Adilabad District.

In 1949, he accepted a lectureship at the School of Oriental Studies in London. Shortly after his initial appointment he was made Reader, and then Chair of Asian Anthropology in 1951. He was founding Head of the Department of Cultural Anthropology (later Anthropology and Sociology) from 1950 until 1975. He was appointed as Acting Director for the academic session 1969-1970. By the time of his retirement from SOAS in 1976, Fürer-Haimendorf had built up the largest department of anthropology in the country.

In 1953 the Kingdom of Nepal was officially opened to outsiders, and Fürer-Haimendorf became the first foreign anthropologist to be allowed to work in Nepal. He was initially drawn to study the Sherpas of Eastern Nepal. Until the mid-1960s, he concentrated his fieldwork almost exclusively on Nepal, during which time he walked the length and breadth of the country, often in the company of Dor Bahadur Bista. He made return visits throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

Fürer-Haimendorf received numerous academic honours including the Sykes and Roy Medals; RAI Rivers Memorial Medal (1949); his appointment as President of the Royal Anthropological Institute (1975-1977); the King Birendra Prize from the Royal Nepal Academy (1976); and the Austrian Order of Merit for Art and Science (1982). He was Munro Lecturer at Edinburgh University (1959) and also gave the Myers, Foerster and Frazer Lectures. He was visiting professor at the Colegio de Mexico (1964-1966).

In 1938, he married Elizabeth Barnardo (Betty), who became his co-worker, organiser of his expeditions, and a notable ethnographer in her own right. She died in 1987. Fürer-Haimendorf died on 11 June 1995, at the age of 85.

For further information, see introduction in Culture and Morality: essays in honour of Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, ed Adrian C Mayer (Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1981), pp vii-xvi, and the obituary in The Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, vol lix (1996).

Fürer-Haimendorf's numerous publications included: The Naked Nagas (1939); The Chenchus (vol 1 of The Aboriginal Tribes of Hyderabad, 1943); The Reddis of the Bison Hills (vol 2, 1945); The Raj Gonds of Adilabad (vol 3, 1948); Himalayan Barbary (1955); The Apa Tanis and their Neighbours (1962); The Sherpas of Nepal (1964); Caste and Kin in Nepal, India and Ceylon (1966); Morals and Merit (1967); The Konyak Nagas (1969); Himalayan Traders (1975); Return to the Naked Nagas (1976); The Gonds of Andhra Pradesh (1979); A Himalayan Tribe, from Cattle to Cash (1980); Asian Highland Societies in Anthropological Perspective (1981); Highlanders of Arunachal Pradesh (1982); Tribes of India: the Struggle for Survival (1982); Himalayan Adventure (1983); The Sherpas Transformed (1984); Tribal Populations and Cultures of the Indian Subcontinent (1985); The Renaissance of Tibetan Civilization (1990). He also edited René de Nebesky-Wojkowitz's Tibetan Religious Dances after the author's sudden death in 1959. He published his autobiography, Life Among Indian Tribes: the Autobiography of an Anthropologist, in 1990.

Frederick Maze was born in Belfast. He was educated at Wesley College, Dublin, and privately. He entered the Chinese Maritime Customs in 1891, at the close of Sir Robert Hart's regime. In 1899 he was made Acting Audit Secretary at the Inspectorate General in Peking and the following year became Acting Commissioner at Ichang. In 1901 he became Deputy Commissioner firstly at Foochow and then from 1902-1904 in Canton. He opened the Custom House at Kongmoon, West River in 1904, and was subsequently Commissioner in Tengyueh (Burma Frontier) 1906-1908, Canton (1911-1915), Tientsin (1915-1920), Hankow (1921-1925) and Shanghai (1925-1929). In 1928 he was appointed by the Chinese Government to be Deputy Inspector-General of Customs, serving as Inspector-General from 1929-1943, a period of great upheaval in Chinese politics. He continued to run the service when the Japanese occupied in 1937 but after Pearl Harbour he was interned. On his release he went to Chungking where a temporary base for the Customs had been established, but after a few months he resigned and returned to England. Other positions included his appointment by the Chinese Government as Advisor to the National Board of Reconstruction in 1928, and his membership of the Loans Sinking Fund from 1932. He was married to Laura Gwendoline. He died on 25 March 1959.

Born in Chalfont-St-Giles, Buckinghamshire, 1904; son of Roland Allen (a missionary in North China with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel until his resignation in 1907, and a radical critic of the Church) and his wife (Mary) Beatrice (née Tarleton); educated at Westminster School; studied classics at St John's College Oxford; travelled to the Sudan to work on the Gezia Cotton Scheme Project for the Sudan Plantations Syndicate as Assistant Inspector of a cotton plantation, 1927; learnt to speak Arabic and developed an interest in Islamic culture and the Islamic world; returned to England and entered the Colonial Service as Superintendent of Schools in Tanganyika (later Tanzania), 1929; married Winifred 'Winkie' Ethel Emma Brooke (d 1991), 1930; became increasingly interested in the Swahili language; gained a diploma in Swahili from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, by distance learning, 1932; Political Officer and then Deputy British Agent in the Western Aden Protectorate, 1947-1952; returned to Tanganyika, 1952; left the Colonial Service, 1958; Secretary of the Inter-Territorial Swahili Language Committee from 1959; a close friend of many East African writers, notably Shabaan Robert; appointed Honorary Research Fellow at University College, Dar-es-Salaam, with a Rockefeller Foundation grant to document Swahili, 1965; collected, edited and published Swahili and Arabic manuscripts; with his wife, made extensive collections on the East African coast in connection with his academic post and in conjunction with the East African Swahili Committee; Director of the Institute of Swahili Research, University of Dar-es-Salaam, 1968-1970; after retirement from the University, with his wife ran the special Swahili language programme at the Danish Volunteer Training Centre in Tengeru, near Arusha, 1970-1973; continued to translate and publish Swahili texts; four children; died, 1979. For further biographical details see Friederike Wilkening, Der Swahilist John Willoughby Tarleton Allen - Biographie, Werk und Bibliotek (Universität zu Koln, 1998). Publications include: Maandiko ya Kizungu yaani kitabu cha kusomea herufi wanazozitumia wazungu, etc (Swahili-Arabic reader) (Longmans & Co, London, 1938, and later editions); Utenzi wa Vita vya Wadachi Kutamalaki Mrima: the German conquest of the Swahili coast (Beauchamp Printing Co, Arusha, 1955); Utenzi wa Kutawafu Nabii: the release of the Prophet (Beauchamp Printing Co, Arusha, 1956); The Swahili and Arabic manuscripts and tapes in the Library of the University College, Dar-es-Salaam: a catalogue (E J Brill, Leiden, 1970); Tendi: six examples of a Swahili classical verse form (Heinemann Educational, Nairobi and London, 1971); The customs of the Swahili people: the Desturi za Waswahili of Mtoro bin Mwinyi Bakari and other Swahili persons (University of California Press, Berkeley and London, 1981); A Poem concerning the death of the prophet Muhammad: Utendi wa kutawafu Nabii, a traditional Swahili epic (Edwin Mellen, Lewiston and Lampeter, 1991).

Arnold Adrian Baké was born in Hilversum in the Netherlands on 19 May 1899. He was educated at the Haarlem Gymnasium and entered the University of Leiden in 1918, where he studied languages including Javanese, Malay, Arabic and Sanskrit. His hope was to enter government service in the Netherland Indies. Economic pressures on the government meant that this was not possible and instead, Baké considered becoming a professional singer. In 1923 he went to the University of Utrecht to work on Sanskrit treatises on the theory of music. This research became the basis of his doctorate gained in 1930. He also met Rabindranath Tagore for the first time. In 1925 Baké married Cornelia Timmers and for the next four years they lived in Santiniketan where Baké continued his studies and came into contact with many Indian musicians and scholars, especially through Rabindranath Tagore.

In 1931 he went to India under the auspices of the Kern Institute at Leiden, during which time he began to record material including music from Nepal. He returned to Europe in 1934, and embarked on a lecture tour of the United States. In 1937 he became a Senior Research fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford. During the War he remained in India working as Music Adviser to All-India Radio, returning to England in 1946. He became a lecturer at the School of Oriental and African Studies in Sanskrit and Indian Music in 1948 and was appointed Reader in Sanskrit in 1949. In this position he was not only responsible for encouraging research into Indian music but also into other non-European languages.

He was a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences, the International Folk Music Council, the International Society for Folk Narrative Research and the Council of the Folk-Lore Society and an original member of the Committee for Ethnomusicology of the Royal Anthropological Institute. In 1958 he was involved in a street accident in Leiden, which led to recurring bouts of ill health. He died on 8 October 1963.

Bishwa Nath Pandey ('Bish') was born on 30 October 1929, in the village of Bhatwalia, Deoria District, Uttar Pradesh, India. He read law at the University of Benares, but in 1955 decided to leave his legal practice in order to study Indian history at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He joined the staff of the School as a lecturer in Modern Indian History in 1963 and became Reader in 1980.

He wrote a number of books including The Introduction of English Law into India (1964); a successful anthology, A Book of India (1964); The Break-Up of British India (1969), which established him as an authority on the Indian nationalist movement; and a biography of Jawaharlal Nehru, Nehru (published in 1976). Subsequently, he turned his attention to the post 1947 period, and produced South and South East Asia, 1945-1979 (1980). At the time of his death in 1982, Dr. Pandey was working on a major study of the history of post-independence India.

He was married twice, with one daughter by his first marriage, and two daughters by his second. He died on 21 November 1982, shortly after chairing a public discussion on the new Columbia film Gandhi.

John Sydenham Furnivall was born on 14 February 1878 in Great Bentley, Essex. His early education was at the Royal Medical Benevolent College, Epsom. He won a scholarship to Trinity Hall, Cambridge in 1896, and in 1899 obtained a second class degree in the Natural Science Tripos. In 1901 he joined the India Civil Service. He arrived in Burma on 16 December 1902 and took up the appointment of Assistant Commissioner and Settlement Officer. He was made Deputy Commissioner in 1915 and Commissioner of Land Settlement and Records in 1920. He retired in 1925.

In 1910 he worked with Professor Duroiselle and U May Aung in the Burma Research Society. In 1924 he founded the Burma Book Club and in 1928 the Burma Education Extension Association.

Following his retirement to Britain, John Sydenham Furnivall became Lecturer in Burmese Language, History and Law at Cambridge University (1936-1941). In 1940, together with C W Dunn, Furnivall published a Burmese-English Dictionary. In 1942 he wrote Reconstruction in Burma for the Government of Burma. He was awarded the Order of Orange-Nassau in 1948; Thado Thiri Thudhamma from the Burma Government in 1949; and Degree of D. Litt by Rangoon University in 1957. He died in 1960.

Other published works by J S Furnivall include: Political Economy of Burma (1931); Wealth in Burma (1937); Netherlands India (1939); Progress and Welfare in South East Asia (1941); Educational Progress in South East Asia (1943); Experiment in Independence (1947); Colonial Policy and Practice (1948); The Government of Modern Burma (1958); The Fashioning of Leviathan (edited by Gehan Wijewardene) (1991).

Francis (Frank) Robert Moraes was born in Bombay in 1907, the son of a Goan civil engineer. His childhood was spent in Poona. He attended Catholic schools in Poona and Bombay. In 1923 he entered St Xavier's College, Bombay, where he read History and Economics. From 1927 to 1934 he read History at Oxford University. He was active in student politics and was elected President of the Oxford and London Indian Majlis (Indian Students' Association) and of the Indian Students' Union in England. He was the editor of an Oxford student newspaper, Bharat. Later he studied Law at Lincoln's Inn, London and was called to the Bar.

He returned to India in 1934 and practised as a barrister for a few months. Bored with his profession, he wrote several articles for a subsidiary newspaper of The Times of India. In 1936 he joined the staff of The Times of India as a journalist and in 1938 he was promoted to junior assistant editor. From 1942 to 1945 he toured Burma and China as the newspaper's war correspondent.

He married Beryl in 1936/7. They had a son Francis (Dom) who became a well-known poet in the 1960s. During the 1940s Beryl Moraes became ill and was confined thereafter to mental institutions. From 1946 to 1949 Francis Moraes lived in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) as editor of The Times Ceylon and The Morning Standard. He also served as Indian correspondent for several British newspapers. In 1950 he returned to The Times of India and became its first Indian editor. He was a member of the Indian Cultural Delegation and travelled extensively. In 1957 he was appointed editor-in-chief of the Goenka family newspaper, the Indian Express (formerly the Morning Standard). He became one of India's best-known journalists. His two regular columns appeared on Sundays and Mondays in the Indian Express and his 'Ariel' column in the Sunday Standard. He also wrote articles for various newspapers outside India. Occasionally he broadcast for the BBC and Radio Australia. In 1961 he was appointed Sheriff to Bombay. In December 1972 he retired from the Indian Express. He settled in London as its representative in 1973, with Marilyn Silverstone, a well-known American photo-journalist. He died in London on 2 May 1974, aged 66.

Francis Robert Moraes was the author of several acclaimed books. With H L Stimson he wrote Introduction to India (1945); then followed a series of political studies, Report on Mao's China (1953); Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography (1956); Sir Purshotamdas Thakurdas (1957); Yonder One World: A Study of Asia and the West (1957); The Revolt in Tibet (1960); India Today (1960); Nehru, Sunlight and Shadow (1964); The Importance of Being Black: an Asian Looks at Africa (1965). He co-edited John Kenneth Galbraith Introduces India (1974). His own political autobiography, Witness to an Era: India 1920 to the Present Day, was published in 1973.

John Mansfield Addis was born on 4 June 1914. He was the twelfth child and fifth son of Sir Charles and Lady Addis. He was educated at Rugby from 1928 to 1932 and then at Christchurch College, Oxford. He joined the Diplomatic Service in 1938 and served for a while as Assistant Private Secretary to the Permanent Under-Secretary, Sir Alexander Cadogan. Between 1942 and 1944 he worked as Civilian Liaison Officer at the Allied Force Headquarters in the Mediterranean, London, Algiers and Caserta, and in 1944 as Second Secretary, HM Embassy Paris. Between 1945 and 1947 he served as Assistant Private Secretary to the Prime Minister, Clement Attlee.

In 1947, he began his service in China, as First Secretary and Head of Chancery, HM Embassy Nanking and then in 1950, HM Embassy Peking. He remained in Peking for the next seven years and his postings included Assistant in the China and Korea Department, Foreign Office (1951-1954), Member of the UK Delegation to Geneva Conference on Korea (1954) and Counsellor and Consul General, HM Embassy Peking (1954-1957). He left China in 1957. Subsequent postings included Head of Southern Department, Foreign Office (1957-1959); HM Ambassador Vientiane, Laos (1960-1962); Fellow at the Harvard University Centre for International Affairs (1962-1963); HM Ambassador, Manila (1963-1969); and HM Ambassador, China (1970-1974). He retired in 1974.

In 1975 he was elected as Senior Research Fellow in Contemporary Chinese Studies at Wolfson College, Oxford, and held this position throughout his retirement. He was also a member of the Advisory Council of the V&A Museum, a Trustee of the British Museum, Board Member of the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank, Adviser to the Barclays International Bank and Great Britain China Centre. He died on 31 July 1983. He never married.

Ifor Ball Powell was born on 12 September 1902, at Llanfihangel Talyllyn, Brecon. He was a student at Aberystwyth in the early 1920s, where he came under the influence of C. K. Webster and Sidney Herbert in the then newly founded department of International Politics. A Rockefeller fellowship took him to the University of Michigan to study American history. While there he became interested in the Far East. Powell became particularly interested in the Philippines, when he arrived there as a Rockefeller scholar in 1926. He spent three years visiting islands in the central and southern Philippines, collecting a vast amount of information and material on the government, economy and history of the islands. He was particularly interested in the history of the British in the Philippines and collected material on British firms and society. After his return to Britain, and for the rest of his life, Ifor Powell continued his interest in and links with the Philippines, writing to many Filipino friends and colleagues and maintaining an extensive collection of press cuttings.

During the 1930s, Ifor Powell taught history at Barry County Grammar School for Boys. In 1940 he took up wartime duties as a temporary civil servant in the Ministry of Labour. He also visited the United States as a representative of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. In 1945 he was appointed to the Department of History, University College, Cardiff, to teach modern European history. In this position he introduced courses on the expansion of Europe, Far Eastern and American history. From 1949 his teaching was entirely in these fields. Cardiff was thus among one of the first history departments in the UK to widen its syllabus to accommodate new areas of interest created by the Second World War.

He married Anne Nora Lewis (d. 9 March 1983) on 18 August 1931. There were no children. Ifor Ball Powell died on 11 December 1986, at Barry, Glamorgan.

Malcolm Guthrie was born in 1903, in Hove, Sussex, the son of a Scottish father and Dutch mother. After leaving school, he gained a BSc in metallurgy at Imperial College, London, thus perpetuating the strong engineering tradition of the Guthrie family. However, shortly after graduating, he felt called to work in the Church and enrolled at Spurgeon's College to study for the Ministry in 1925. He subsequently took up a pastorate in Rochester, Kent. He married Margaret Helen Near in 1931.

In 1932, he was posted to Leopoldville as a missionary with the Baptist Missionary Society, where his interest in language work developed. By 1934 he had published his Lingala Grammar and Dictionary, the first of several books on Lingala including a translation of the New Testament. During his 1935 furlough he studied at the School of Oriental Studies (later the School of Oriental and African Studies). On returning home from the mission field in 1940 he became lecturer, and subsequently senior lecturer at SOAS in 1942. During two years study leave 1942-1944 he undertook a linguistic field-study throughout Bantu Africa, collecting much of the data he used in his comparative language work. His primary interests included tonology, which became the subject of his doctoral thesis, The Tonal Structure of Bemba, and classification, which led to the publication of The Classification of the Bantu Languages in 1948. By 1950, Malcolm Guthrie was Head of the Department of African Languages and Culture at the School of Oriental and African Studies, a post he held for 18 years. In addition to this post he was a member of several boards including the Board of Studies in Oriental and African Languages and Study (Chairman from 1960 to 1965); the Board of Studies in Anthropology, Comparative Linguistics and Theology; the Board of the Faculty of Arts (Vice-Dean from 1960 to 1967); the Advisory Boards in Colonial and Religious Studies; the Committee of Management of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies; the Committee of the British and Foreign Bible Society and the African Studies Association of the UK.

He undertook extensive study of Bemba, Lingala, Kongo, Fang, Mfinu and the Teke languages, working on over 200 Bantu languages. Through his work on classification, he developed a means of establishing the genetic relationship between languages by using his famous two-stage method. This involved firstly collecting lexical items with a common meaning, which could be related by consistent sound shifts and correspondences and symbolising them by creating (hypothetical) starred forms collectively known as Common Bantu. He then interpreted the inferences from this data in terms of pre-history, to present a hypothesis of Bantu origins from a common ancestor language. By 1960 Guthrie had finished stage one of his magnum opus Comparative Bantu, which appeared in 4 volumes published in 1967 (volume 1), 1970 (volumes 3 and 4) and 1971 (volume 2).

During 1966-1968, Guthrie suffered from ill health. His wife also died from cancer in 1968. That same year he was elected Fellow of the British Academy, the first time this honour had been bestowed upon anyone in the field of African language study. He died unexpectedly on 22 November 1972 of a heart attack, leaving his work on Bemba Grammar, General Bantu Grammar, Lingala material and planned work on Teke unfinished. Some of the preparatory material for these works can be found in this collection, in addition to much of the data he used in the compilation of Comparative Bantu.