In 1812, and again in 1815,the government of Persia dispatched its first parties of students to study in Europe. However, soon after their arrival in England, they found themselves bereft of financial or other support from their princely sponsor, the reformist crown prince 'Abbas Mirza. During the years they spent in London before returning home in 1819, the six students skillfully negotiated their way into a variety of social networks among East India Company orientalists, scholars at the universities, physicians, military officers and missionaries. Drawing on archival evidence, diaries and other sources from the period, this paper focuses on what the various students were studying; who they were studying with; and what their various British cooperators learned from them in return. Occuring a full decade before the better-known arrival of the Egyptian students in Paris in 1826, the Persian student mission affords us a detailed picture of intellectual exchange between Europe and the Middle East early in the nizam-i jadid period of reforms across the entire region.