Born ‎1885, died ‎13 Aug 1929‎, age 43 or 44 years
Manaji Dorabji Mehta studied in Navsari in Gujarati till the age of 7 when his paternal uncle Meherwanji Mehta called him to Calcutta to study at the St. Xavier's School. He studied here only till the fourth standard, but his love for books gave him knowledge and a good command over the English language.

His ambition was not business but engineering and he got himself apprenticed to a foundary where he worked for a while before being called to Nagpur to work with the "Empress Mills" that had recently been founded by Jamshedji Tata.

Not liking it there, however, he returned to Calcutta and joined M. N. Mehta and Co. as an assistant. When his father died, he became a partner in the firm and took his first trip to China where he relieved his brother, Dhunjisha.

He lived in Canton for one and a half years before coming back to Calcutta but had to return in 1914 when the manager left. In 1915, he went over to Kobe and opened a new branch there.