Arthur Humphreys Foord was born on September 14, 1844, in Brixton, Surrey, England.

He was a British paleontologist and scientific illustrator. He attended Chatham House School, Ramsgate, Kent. He worked in a commercial business from 1861 to 1871 and built a reputation as a natural history illustrator. He travelled to Montreal in 1871, with letters of introduction to the first director of the Geological Survey of Canada, Sir William Edmond Logan, Alfred Richard Cecil Selwyn, and to John William Dawson. In 1872, the Geological Survey of Canada appointed Foord as a natural history artist, a position he held until 1883. Though he worked primarily as an artist, he also gained experience in the field collecting and museum curation. From 1875 to 1876 he took courses in zoology and paleontology at McGill University under Dawson. In 1883, he was appointed assistant paleontologist when the Survey moved to Ottawa. He resigned the same year and returned to London where he worked as a volunteer at the British Museum (Natural History) and took up the private study of geology, practical zoology, and comparative anatomy. In 1883, he published "Contribution to the Micro-Palaeontology of the Cambro-Silurian Rocks of Canada", followed by 5 papers on fossil corals in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History and Geological Magazine (1884-1886). Foord was given the responsibility of preparing the “Catalogue of the Fossil Cephalopoda” in the British Museum, seeing the first 2 volumes published in 1888 and 1891, and a third with George Charles Crick published in 1897. In 1888, he was made a fellow of the Geological Society of London. He moved to Dublin in 1891 where he was appointed librarian and editor of scientific publications of the Royal Dublin Society, a position he held until his retirement in 1920. He worked on the cephalopod material in the Geological Survey of Ireland collections and the National Museum of Ireland. In 1896, he was awarded a doctorate from the University of Munich having submitted a thesis which he later published as a 5-volume monograph with the Palaeontographical Society, “Carboniferous Cephalopoda of Ireland" (1897–1903).

In 1896, he married Ida Franziska Adelheid Kuhlmeyer (1846–1916). He died on August 12, 1933, in Steyning, Sussex, England.

Albert Edward Foote was born on February 6, 1846, in Hamilton, New York.

He was an American physician, chemist, mineral collector, and dealer. He graduated from Courtland Academy in Homer, New York, where he first became interested in mineralogy and began collecting minerals in 1862. He obtained his medical degree in 1867 from the University of Michigan. With Foote's knowledge of chemistry, he was appointed Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Mineralogy at the Iowa State Agricultural College at Ames in 1861 and became a full professor in 1871. In 1875, he moved to Philadelphia and set up practice as a physician, mineralogist, and seller of medical and other scientific books. At the Centennial Exposition in 1876 in Philadelphia he began selling part of his collected minerals starting a business as a professional mineral trader. He built one of the largest and most successful mineral dealerships in history. He was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a member of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences and of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

In 1872, he married Augusta Jane Mathews (1845–1913). He died on October 11, 1895, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Annabella Keith Forbes was born in 1855 in Aberdeen, Scotland.

She was a Scottish naturalist, traveller, and travel writer. She travelled extensively with her husband, Henry Ogg Forbes, a distinguished Scottish explorer, ornithologist, and botanist. She published the book “Unbeaten tracks in islands of the Far East: experiences of a naturalist's wife in the 1880's.“ It takes the reader from Batavia (then the capital of the Dutch East Indies) to Celebes, the Moluccas, the Nutmeg Islands, and finally Timur, where the book ends dramatically with the author, alone and stricken by fever, awaiting her husband's return from the dark interior.

In 1882, she married Henry Ogg Forbes (1851–1932). She died in December 1922 in London, England.

David Foster was born on September 6, 1828, in Douglas, Middle, Isle of Man.

He was a geological chemist, mining engineer, and amateur geologist. Following education at Athole Academy, Douglas, he attended a boarding school at Brentwood in Essex until 1844, when he entered the University of Edinburgh to study chemistry. In 1848, Forbes became superintendent of the mining and metallurgical colony in Norway, in charge of the construction of mining and smelting works. He spent ten years in Norway, receiving royal favours for arming miners in support of the king of Sweden in the revolutionary year of 1848. For his many contributions to, and knowledge of, Norwegian geology, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1858. In 1856, Forbes was made a partner in the firm of Evans and Askin and, in 1857, he was sent to Chile, Peru, and Bolivia in search of exploitable nickel and cobalt ores. In 1866, following further travels in Africa and Europe, Forbes settled in London as a mining consultant for overseas metallurgical enterprises. He had become an associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1853 and served on its council from 1872 to 1873. On the foundation of the Iron and Steel Institute in 1869, he became its conscientious foreign secretary. During his worldwide travels, Forbes had amassed a large fund of geological information and published over sixty papers.

In 1865, he married Julia Elizabeth Camilla Koehler (1846–1876). He died on December 5, 1876, in London, England.

Duncan Stuart Forbes was born in Toronto in 1889 and died in Montreal in 1965. He was the son of portrait painter J. Colin Forbes; his mother’s name is unknown. Forbes graduated from McGill with a Bachelor of Science in 1911 and a Bachelor of Architecture in 1915. After serving in World War I as an artillery officer with The Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, he returned to McGill briefly as Assistant Professor of Architecture. As the youngest major in Canada, he served for a short time with the Canadian Permanent Force. At the request of Sir Arthur Currie, Forbes returned to McGill in 1924 to become Athletics Manager, a position he held until his retirement in 1947. He formed the Students’ Athletic Council at McGill, the Redbirds Ski Club for alumni, the Scarlet Key Society, and the Martlet Society. Forbes was on leave from McGill during World War II, when he served as Senior Machine Gun Officer for Canada, rose to the rank of Lt.-Colonel, and was awarded an O.B.E. He loved the outdoor life, was an enthusiastic cook, and a talented designer: he created McGill's decorations for the visit of Princess Elizabeth in 1951.