Colesworthey Grant was an English artist, writer and pioneer activist against cruelty to animals in India. Teaching himself art and sketching, he produced numerous portraits of many early East India Company servants of influence in Calcutta which were published in the local periodicals of the time. He later became a professor of drawing. He founded the "Calcutta Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals" in 1861 after seeing the sorry conditions especially of draught animals on the streets of Calcutta.

Frederic John Mouat was a British surgeon, chemist and prison reformer. He was part of the committee that helped identify the Andaman Islands as a suitable location for a convict settlement. He examined the use of chaulmogra oil in the treatment of leprosy and published the first illustrated book on human anatomy in Urdu in 1849. He was also involved in the founding of Presidency College, Calcutta.