She wrote many books and became acquainted with many of the leading figures in Indian politics and culture, including Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi.
[4] Sykes came to Madras (now called Chennai) in 1928 to serve as a teacher at the Bentinck School, Vepery,[5] remaining a resident of India for more than 60 years.
In the 1960s Sykes served in efforts to bring peace in Nagaland, as well as living and conducting nonviolence training in Kotagiri in the Nilgiris Hills, and becoming increasingly active among Quakers, at Rasulia (Madhya Pradesh) as well as outside India.
[6][7] After an illness, at age 85 years, Sykes moved in 1991 from India to Swarthmore, a Quaker residential home in Buckinghamshire, England, where she remained until her death on 17 August 1995.
[10] Sykes was also the focus of an entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,[11] and of a chapter in a doctoral dissertation in History by Sharon M. H. MacDonald (2010).