Ralph Richardson was born on November 22, 1845, in Edinburgh, Scotland.

He was a Scottish lawyer and noted amateur geologist and historian. He was educated at Edinburgh Academy (1857-1861) and spent at least a year at the Kreuzschule in Dresden. He studied law at the University of Edinburgh and the Collège de France in Paris. In 1875, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh for his contributions to geology. In 1882, he co-founded the Edinburgh Geological Society and served as its first Vice President. Later in life, he served as a Writer to the Signe and HM Commissary Clerk of Edinburgh. He contributed numerous articles to various geological journals.

In 1879, he married Melville Elizabeth Fleming (1858-). He died on June 26, 1933, in Edinburgh, Scotland.

James Richardson was born on March 29, 1810, in Perthshire, Scotland.

He was a farmer, schoolteacher, and geologist. He immigrated to Canada in 1829, where he worked as a farm labourer in Lachine and later as a teacher in Beauharnois County, near Montreal. Then he was employed by the newly established Geological Survey of Canada as an assistant on surveys of Lake Superior in 1846 and 1847. During succeeding summers, he served as an assistant in the Geological Survey investigations of the geology of the Eastern Townships from the American border to the base of the Gaspé peninsula. Richardson played a major role in the collection of mineral specimens from the Ottawa and Quebec regions, which were included in the Canadian exhibit at the universal exposition in Paris in 1855. In 1856, he became a permanent “explorer” with the Geological Survey. In 1860, he became the first in Canada to use photography to record geological features. In the 1870s, he spent time exploring the coast of British Columbia. In 1878, Richardson Inlet in the Queen Charlotte Islands was named by George Mercer Dawson in recognition of Richardson’s contribution to the geological exploration of Canada. In 1880, he collected specimens for McGill College in Montreal. He also served for a period as cabinet keeper for the Geological Survey.

In 1831, he married Barbara McConnachay (1811–1885). He died on November 18, 1883, in Matane, Quebec.

Charles Addison Richardson was born on October 9, 1829, in Franklin, Norfolk, Massachusetts.

He was a teacher, editor, and journalist. He attended the Westfield and Bridgewater Normal Schools and taught for several years in Dedham and other towns. In 1854, he moved to Boston and worked as a clerk in John P. Jewett's bookstore. In 1856, he took the position of managing editor in the religious weekly Congregationalist, and from that time, until his death, his personal history was identified with it. He also became its part-proprietor. In 1866, he published a volume called Household Readings, a selection of articles from his paper. Richardson received the honorary degree of M.A. from Dartmouth College in 1885.

In 1852, he married Mary Jane Phipps (1829–1911). He died on January 18, 1891, in Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts.

Robert Hallowell Richards was born on August 26, 1844, in Gardiner, Maine.

He was an American mining engineer, inventor, metallurgist, educator, and author. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1868. Upon graduation, he stayed at MIT as an instructor, advancing to the rank of professor in 1884 and serving as Department Head of Mining and Metallurgy for 41 years from 1873 to his retirement in 1914. The laboratories which he established at the Institute were the first of their kind in the world. Richards invented a jet aspirator for chemical and physical labs and a prism for stadia surveying. He also invented separators for Lake Superior copper, Virginia iron, and three for ores of the Western United States. Richards served as president of the American Institute of Mining Engineers in 1886. He was a member of the United States Assay Commission in 1897 and attained prominence as a legal expert in chemical and metallurgical cases. He was the author of more than 100 monographs and articles, but his most notable work is a monumental treatise, Ore Dressing (4 vols., 1903–09). He also published a Text Book of Ore Dressing (1909).

In 1875, he married Ellen Henriette Swallow (1842–1911), the first woman graduate of MIT, and in 1912, he married Lillian Jameson (1866-1924). He died on March 27, 1945, in Worcester County, Massachusetts.