Frederick Henry Vane was born in 1807 in Bassenthwaite, Cumberland, England to a British politician, landowner and aristocrat Frederick Fletcher Vane, 2nd baronet of Hutton, and Lady Hannah Bowerbank. In 1849 he fought a duel with J. Baxter of the Royal Canadian Rifles. He passed away in 1894 in Brighton, Sussex, United Kingdom.

Ernest Van den Broeck was born on December 1, 1851, in Brussels, Belgium.

He was a Belgian geologist, paleontologist, and botanist. He served as a Curator at the Royal Museum of Natural History of Belgium (1879-1919) and the first Secretary-general of the Belgian Society of Geology, Paleontology, and Hydrology (1903). He founded the Belgian Botanical Society and created a "Japanese-Alpine Garden" at his home in Genval. He was also a great collector of Japanese art, and his collections form the basis of the Far Eastern section of the Royal Museum of Natural History. He was the author of numerous geological and botanical publications, e.g., "Une visite à la station zoologique et à l'aquarium de Naples" (1882), "Explication de la feuille de Bilsen" (1883), and "Les cavernes et les rivières souterraines de la Belgique" (1910). In 1989, the Society created a Van den Broeck Medal in his honour.

He died on September 12, 1932, in Genval, Belgium.

Vancouver was a naval officer and explorer, who widely explored the North American Pacific coast, including much of coastal British Columbia, and wrote about his experiences.