Cyril Lionel Robert James (4 January 1901 – 19 May 1989), who sometimes wrote under the pen-name J.R. Johnson, was an Afro-Trinidadian historian, journalist, socialist theorist and essayist. His works are influential in various theoretical, social, and historiographical contexts. His work is a staple of subaltern studies, and he figures as a pioneering and influential voice in postcolonial literature. His work is often associated with Caribbean and Afro-nationalism, though James himself contended that the "either-or" was a false dichotomy, and that Caribbean peoples were indebted to European as much as African cultural traditions. A tireless political activist, James's writing on the Communist International stirred debate in Trotskyist circles, and his history of the Haitian Revolution, The Black Jacobins, is a seminal text in the literature of the African Diaspora.

Characterized by one literary critic as an "anti-Stalinist dialectician", James was known for his autodidactic facility, for his occasional playwriting and fiction, and as an avid sportsman. He is also famed as a writer on cricket.

Selma James (born 15 August 1930) is a co-author of the women's movement classic The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community, founder of the International Wages for Housework Campaign and coordinator of the Global Women's Strike.

Selma James was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1930. As a young woman she worked in factories and then as a full-time housewife and mother. At the age of 15 she joined the Johnson-Forest tendency, one of whose three leaders was CLR James.

In 1952 she wrote the classic A Woman’s Place, first published as a column in Correspondence, a bi-weekly newspaper written and edited by its readers with an audience of mainly working-class people. Unusually at the time, the newspaper had pages dedicated to giving women, young people and Black people an autonomous voice. James was a regular columnist and edited the Women's Page. In 1955 she came to England to marry CLR James, who had been deported from the United States during the McCarthy Period. They were together for 25 years and were close political colleagues.

John Michael Brearley OBE (born 28 April 1942) is a retired English first-class cricketer who captained Cambridge University, Middlesex, and England in 31 of his 39 Test matches, winning 17 and losing only 4. He was the President of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) in 2007–08. Since his retirement from professional cricket he has pursued a career as a writer and psychoanalyst, serving as President of the British Psychoanalytical Society 2008-10.

Brearley was educated at the City of London School (where his father Horace, himself a first-class cricketer, was a master). While at St. John's College, Cambridge, Brearley excelled at cricket (he was then a wicketkeeper/batsman). After making 76 on first-class debut as a wicketkeeper, he played for Cambridge University between 1961 and 1968 (captaining the side from 1964 onwards), first as an undergraduate in the Classical and Moral Sciences tripos, and then as a postgraduate. While still at Cambridge he was chosen for the MCC tour to South Africa in 1964–65, and to captain the MCC Under-25 side in Pakistan in 1966–67, when he scored 312 not out against North Zone (his highest first-class score) and 223 against the Pakistan Under-25 side he ended the tour with 793 runs from six matches at an average of 132.