Badruddin Tyabji was the son of Cambay merchant, Tyab Ali, and his wife, Ameena, the daughter of a rich mullah, Meher Ali. Tyab All of Tyab Ali's sons went to England for further education or trade. His elder brother, Camruddin, had been the first Indian solictor admitted in England, and inspired the 15-year-old Badruddin to join the Bar.

In April 1860 Tyabji went to England to study at the Highbury New Park College. His father gave him letters of introduction to Lord Ellenborough, the retired Viceroy of India. Tyabji passed the London matriculation examination and entered London University and the Middle Temple as a student in 1863. Because of deteriorating eyesight he returned to Bombay in late 1864 but resumed terms at the Middle Temple in late 1865. While in India he was married to a 14-year-old girl. He was called to the Bar in April 1867, and on his return to Bombay in December 1867 became the first Indian barrister in the High Court of Bombay.

Tyabji was elected to the municipal corporation in 1873. He was a member of the University of Bombay senate (1875–1905) and appointed to the Bombay legislative council in 1882, resigning in 1886 owing to ill health. Along with Pherozeshah Mehta and K. T. Telang, he was largely responsible for forming the Bombay Presidency Association in 1885, a body which championed Indian interests and hosted the first meeting of the Indian National Congress in Bombay at the end of 1885. Tyabji was the third President of Congress. He was deeply concerned with matters affecting Muslims. To promote social interaction among the city's Muslims, Tyabji was instrumental in founding both the Islam Club and the Islam Gymkhana. He sent all of his daughters to be educated in Bombay and in 1904 he sent two of them to boarding school in Haslemere in England.

In June 1895 Tyabji was made a judge of the Bombay High Court, the first Muslim and the third Indian to be so elevated. While on a year's furlough in London in 1906 Tyabji died suddenly of a heart attack.

Mithan Lam was the daughter of Ardeshir and Herabai Tata. Born in 1898, her father was a manager of a textile mill and had been to Lancashire in 1913 to learn new ideas about the cotton industry. In 1911, on a holiday in Kashmir, Herabai and Mithan met Sophia Duleep Singh, who told them about the suffrage movement in Britain and inspired Herabai to become involved in women's rights.

Mithan was awarded a first class degree in economics from Elphinstone College, Bombay, winning a medal for the highest marks. Through her mother's connections, who was Honorary Secretary of the Women's Indian Association in Bombay, they were invited to go to Britain in 1919 to give evidence to a Royal Commission on Indian Reforms chaired by Lord Southborough.

Mithan spoke to MPs in the House of Commons and at public meetings in London on the issue of female suffrage in India. She then decided to stay on in England, enrolling on a Masters Course at the LSE in October 1919. Her mother remained in England to look after her. In 1920 the Inns of Court were opened for women and Mithan joined Lincoln's Inn in April 1920. She was one of the first ten women to be called to the Bar in 1923.

Upon her return to Bombay in December 1923, Mithan enrolled in the Bombay High Court and became active in womens' organizations and reform. She edited Stri Dharma, the journal of the All India Women's Conference, for five years. She married Jamshed Shorab Lam in 1933. 

Dharm Sheel Chowdhary originally came to England to do postgraduate medical studies, having received a basic medical qualification from Lahore Medical College. He studied at Edinburgh University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, before joining Dr Gilder’s medical practice in Laindon, Essex, as a GP. In 1933, shortly after his Indian wife joined him in Laindon, Chowdhary bought the practice. The couple went on to have two children, remaining in Britain for the rest of their lives.

According to his wife Savitri Chowdhary's memoir, Chowdhary worked around the clock, also offering dentist work, eye tests and a counselling service. He became a hugely popular doctor and hired a number of assistants to help him with his practice over the years. Chowdhary also served in the Civil Defence and the Home Guard in the Second World War. While the Chowdharys had numerous English friends in Laindon, they were also closely connected to the Indian community in London, making frequent excursions there for meals at Veeraswamy’s, Shafi’s and the vegetarian restaurant Shearn’s, and to attend social functions at the Hindu Centre and the India Club both of which he and his wife helped to establish. An Arya Samaj Hindu and trained as a Hindu priest in India, Chowdhary also officiated at Hindu marriage ceremonies, including that of Indian and English acrobat pair, Dickie Pather and Maisie Rogers.

Chowdhary died in 1959, aged 57, and was mourned by the people of Laindon. In 1966, some years after his death, the Chowdhary County Primary School was opened in Laindon and named after him. The plaque on the school (now closed) read: ‘To honour the memory of Dr Dharm Sheel Chowdhary who gave devoted service to the people of Laindon and the local schools throughout the period from 1931–59.’