[1] Longworth Dames passed the Indian Civil Service examination in 1868, and on his arrival in India in 1870 was posted to the Punjab.
He was an ardent student of Buddhist art on the north-west frontier of India, and brought with him from there a fine collection of sculpture of the Gandhara period.
For more than twenty years he served the Royal Asiatic Society, for part of the time as a vice-president and Joint-Treasurer, and in 1921 he acted as honorary secretary.
After his retirement he prepared several important articles for the Encyclopaedia of Islam on subjects relating to that part of northern India which he had studied so closely.
He compiled a memoir on the Portuguese and German colonies in Africa for the use of the 1919 Peace Congress at Versailles.