Sir Dorabji Tata was born on 27 August 1859, the elder son of Jamsetji Tata and Hirabai. Jamsetji, a visionary of his time, was clear about what he wanted to do with the wealth he had amassed -- to bring about an industrial revolution in India. He laid the foundation of an integrated steel plant and a hydroelectric power generation company. Unfortunately, Jamsetji passed away without seeing his visions bear fruition. It was left to his two sons, Sir Dorabji Tata and Sir Ratan Tata, to fulfill his dreams. And it was Sir Dorabji, with his drive and enthusiasm – assisted by his cousin RD Tata – who took it up on his shoulders to see the projects through to completion. Jamsetji Tata also gave shape to several pioneering institutions and foundations, the notable among them being the Indian Institute of Science at Bangalore and the J.N. Tata Endowment Fund.

Sir Dorabji initially studied at the Proprietary High School in Mumbai, before he was sent to a private tutor in Kent, England, at the age of 16. He entered the Gonville and Caius College at Cambridge when he was 18 and excelled in sports, especially cricket, rugger and soccer. He was also an avid tennis player, a sprinter and a horseman.

Sir Dorabji returned to Mumbai in 1879, to join St. Xavier’s College. He received his B.A. degree in 1882.

Sir Dorabji soon plunged deep into the affairs of the family business. He worked for the realization of Jamsetji’s vision of an integrated steel plant. The result was Tata Steel. He explored Central India for iron ore, riding in bullock carts and visiting places where they had no choice but to make tea from soda water.

When Jamsetji passed away, the Tata enterprises comprised three textile mills and the Taj Mahal Hotel, Mumbai. Under Sir Dorabji's stewardship, the business grew to add Tata Steel, three electric power companies and one of India’s leading insurance companies. Sir Dorabji had also seen through the establishment of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. In 1912, he offered the pioneering institution a donation as large as the one his father had made to establish a School of Research in Tropical Medicine. For some reason, the venture did not take off immediately. Notable among his other deeds in the field of education were a sizeable donation to the University of Cambridge for the equipment of a laboratory in the School of Engineering and the constitution of a Chair for Sanskrit studies at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune. During his lifetime he also gave his collection of paintings, statuary and other art objects, generously to the Prince of Wales Museum, Mumbai, (Chhtrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalya) now on display there as the Sir Dorabji Tata Collection.

Sir Dorabji was knighted in 1910.

Sir Dorabji had an unstinted love for sports. He was responsible for India participating for the first time in the Olympic Games. It was in 1919, even before the country had an Olympic Committee that he facilitated four athletes and two wrestlers to participate in the Antwerp Games. He also secured for India a place in the 1924 Paris Olympics. He became a member of the International Olympic Committee.

Sir Dorabji then embarked on a mission to identify sports talents in the country. He also wanted to propagate the Olympic movement and entrusted the work to the Young Mens Christian Association (YMCA). As President of the Indian Olympic Council, he financed the Indian contingent to the Paris Olympiad of 1924.

At the age of 38, Sir Dorabji married 18-year-old Meherbai, daughter of H.J. Bhabha. She was beautiful and accomplished, and had a love for English literature and playing the piano. Jamsetji admired his daughter-in-law and in fact he is said to have been responsible for selecting her as Sir Dorabji's companion for life. She shared with Sir Dorabji a love of sports, especially tennis, in which she won many a championship.

Lady Meherbai Tata was a spirited, sensitive woman, deeply concerned about the condition of women. She became one of the founders, first of the Bombay Presidency Women’s Council and then of the National Council of Women. She campaigned for higher education for women and against the purdah system and the practice of untouchability.

She introduced India into the International Council of Women when many others felt that India should concentrate on its freedom struggle. In doing so, she brought India into the women’s international movement.

She was about 50 when she was struck by leukemia. Within a year, on 18 June 1931, she died while at Ruthin, North Wales.

In April 1932, Sir Dorabji, as a memorial to his wife, endowed the Lady Tata Memorial Trust with a sum of Rs 2.5 million for research into leukemia, and a smaller trust, partly from public donations, called the Lady Meherbai D. Tata Education Trust, for the training of women in hygiene, health and social welfare.

Sir Dorabji was a life-long admirer of the renowned Victorian cricketer, W.G. Grace. He collected several pictures and cartoons of him and displayed them in his homes. He was a diabetic and would eat only boiled vegetables. The diabetes made him crotchety in his old age, but through most of his life, he was good humoured, witty and full of comic stories and anecdotes.

Sir Dorabji and Lady Tata had no children. And like his father before him, Sir Dorabji believed that wealth must be put to constructive use. So, less than a year after his wife died, on 11 March 1932, he put all his wealth, estimated at Rs 10 million into a trust for use, "without any distinction of place, nationality or creed", for the advancement of learning and research, the relief of distress, and other charitable purposes. This was the beginning of the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust.

On 11 April 1932, Sir Dorabji set sail for Europe expecting, among other things, to visit his wife’s grave in England. It was on this journey that, on 3 June he died at Bad Kissingen in Germany. A few days later, almost on the anniversary of his wife’s death, he was laid beside her at the Brookwood Cemetery. The mausoleum in which they both rest is designed on the model of that of Cyrus the Great of Persia. Above the door is the family crest and motto from the Zoroastrian scriptures:

Also designed from an ancient Persian model, the sarcophagus is of green bronze and stands on a marble plinth. It bears on its two sides the names:
Dorab & Mehri

In her own lifetime Lady Tata gave freely of herself for the causes she believed in. While in the evening of his life, her husband placed all he had in a trust. A trust that would build institutions, uplift the nation and change lives. A trust that would ensure that his father Jamsetji’s visions and dreams took concrete shape and made a difference.