Sir Dorabji Tata Trust (SDTT) is a premier foundation of the House of Tatas today. While setting up the tradition of "Tata Philanthropy" (love of mankind) his father Jamsetji Tata underlined his greatness by his 'constructive philanthropy'. Jamsetji firmly believed that by merely proping up the weakest and helpless, a nation or a community cannot be advanced, but can be, by lifting up the most gifted and the best so as to make them deliver their best to the country.

Sir Dorabji was born on 27th August 1859 in an illustrious family of India. His father Jamsetji was only 20 years old. After attending the Proprietary High School in Bombay, he was sent to a private tutor in Kent, UK at the age of 16. At 18, he entered Gonville and Caius College at Cambridge. During the two years he was there, he distinguished himself at sports also winning colours at Caius. In fact, India owes her first participation in the Olympic games to him - as the first President of Indian Olympic Council, he financed the Indian contingent to the Paris Olympiad in 1924.

When Jamsetji died, his major schemes were yet to be completed. Of his two sons Dorabji and Ratan, it was Dorabji, with his unending drive and abundant enthusiasm and aided by the determination of his cousin R.D. Tata, who saw his father's projects through to completion and fructification. It was Dorabji who explored central India for Iron Ore. He added many achievements of his own and was knighted in 1910.

At the age of 38, Dorabji married 18 yr old Meherbai, daughter of H.J. Bhabha, Inspector General of Education, Mysore State. An accomplished piano player, she shared with Dorabji a love of sports. Lady Tata was about 50, when she was struck by leukemia. She died on June 18, 1931 while she was at Ruthin, North Wales.

Sir Dorabji and Lady Tata had no issues. Like his father, earlier, Sir Dorabji believed that wealth must be put to constructive use. Less than a year after his wife died, on March 11, 1932 he put all his wealth, estimated at rupees one crore at that time, into a Trust for use

"Without any distinction of place, nationality or creed for the development of
learning and research, the relief of distress, and other charitable purposes".

This was the beginning of the great Sir Dorabji Tata Trust.

Soon after this, in April the same year, as a memorial to his wife, he endowed the Lady Tata Memorial Trust with a corpus of Rs.25 lakhs for research into Leukemia and a much smaller Trust, partly from public donation, the Lady Meherbai Dorabji Tata Education Trust for training of women in hygiene, health and social welfare.

On June 3, while on his journey to Europe he died at Bad Kissingen, Germany, just a couple of months after registering the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust. The trustees felt the Trust should undertake such projects which individuals may find too formidable to pursue but at the same time reflect of genuine relevance to national welfare. In the next six decades or so the Trust established India's first Institute of Social Sciences (Tata Institute of Social Sciences) India's first Cancer Hospital (Tata Memorial Hospital), India's first institute of fundamental research in mathematics and physics (TIFR) and a national centre for performing arts. Lala oberseves 'it was not just a question of establishing a pioneering institution but of educating a nation in that field of endeavour'.

A year after the Indian Institute of Science came into existence at Bangalore in 1911, Sir Dorabji Tata proposed to the Director of the Institute a benefaction as large as his father's to start a school for Tropical Diseases at the Institute. But the Director was not keen on diversifying into medical research at that time as the Institute had just commenced with emphasis on Science and Engineering. Sir Dorabji again discussed with the personalities of Royal Society of London in 1920 with the idea of establishing it in Bombay. The proposal did not fructify though the Royal Society was willing to assist.

In 1977, SDTT returned to fulfill the desire of its Founder. With (Late) Prof. V. Ramalingswami former Director General of Indian Council of Medical Research as the Advisor of the Trust to this project, it was decided to establish the Sir Dorabji Tata Centre for Research in Tropical Diseases at IISc campus at Bangalore in view of the Institute's expertise in advanced biological sciences. The research centre was finally inaugurated on 26th May 2000.