The Daly College

The Daly College, Indore, or just DC as most know it, is one of the oldest public schools in India !! During its extremely long life span, the Daly College has developed tremendous expertise and insight into the management of transitions through the educational process !!

The Daly College Business School, in partnership with De Montfort University, U. K., is an extension of the process for the students entering into higher education !!

The DC has also been featured in a documentary by BBC on Indian cricket: Empire of Cricket - India (after 8 minutes & 29 seconds) !! You can read below for DC's cricketing legends too !!

Now let’s check out the rocking history of this marvellous school !! DC traces its origins back to 1870, when the ‘Agent to the Governor General of India at Indore’ - Sir Henry Daly - set up a modern institute on British lines, to give education to the sons of the chiefs and chiefs themselves of Indian Princely States in Central India, and was named the Indore Residency School in its first avatar !! It was set up by Sir Daly with the help of donations from the chiefs in Central India and was the earliest of the five Chief’s Colleges to be set up in India !! Now, the office of the Public Works Department occupies the original building where the Indore Residency School started in 1870 !! Henry Daly was also instrumental in setting up two other Chiefs’ Colleges in India - the Mayo College at Ajmer and the Rajkumar College at Nowgong (later shifted to Raipur) !! 

Soon afterwards, in 1876, Lord Northbrook visited the Indore Residency School and realised that a favourable ruling class with British education would be useful allies in India, and thus upgraded the school’s status to the Indore Rajkumar College !! However, the Indore Residency School also co-existed with Indore Rajkumar College after the upgrade and was open to the public, but classes for Rajkumars (princes) and chiefs remained separate !!   

The founder of these educational institutes - Henry Daly - retired in 1881, but had already started the work of a new building for the Rajkumar College, which is when it was decided that the college would be renamed as the Daly College, to honour its founder !! 

In 1882, Rajkumar College & Indore Residency School were totally separated and the Rajkumar classes were held in the Old Borading House, where NOW the K. E. Medical School has been built !! Also in 1882, the brand new building was ready for the Rajkumar College, but was opened by Lord Dufferin only on November 14, 1885 !!
 

Unusual for its time, this building was made entirely of reinforced concrete, by Military Works Department, Mhow, and was designed by Col. Thomson !! The classes were held on the upper floor, while the lower floor accommodated the principal’s office, assembly hall, a general reading room for the Rajkumars & their staff, and the library, which contained numerous valuable books on arts, science, history, oriental literature, etc. !! This building NOW houses Indore’s Medical School !! 

This is when the new Daly College had its own campus, building, boarding houses, sports and other infrastructure !! Some of these were:

The Holkar Boarding House:

As the name suggests, was donated by the Indore Durbar (Holkars) to house Rajkumars from various princely states in Central India !! It is now the residence of the Chairman of MP Public Service Commission !! 

       
The Gwalior Boarding House:

With donations from the Gwalior Durbar (Scindias), this house was built in 1891 to the North of the C.I.A. Jail  where HH Maharaja Tukoji Rao Puar of Dewas, Senior, and HH Raja Arun Singh of Narsinghgarh lived here with their companions and tutors from 1898 to 1903 !! In 1904, HH Maharaja Tukoji Rao Holkar, with his guardian Mr. Percy Hide, occupied the house and regularly took part in the college games !! From 1905 to 1908, it accommodated about twenty Rajkumars with a housemaster !! With many additions and alterations, it is NOW used as the Office of MP Public Service Commission in Indore !!

        The New Boarding House:

This was originally the college gymnasium, open all around !! But, to provide accommodation for the students, gymnasium was walled in and made in to a boarding house in 1904, with three large rooms, a bathroom, a room for the House Master, and a spacious verandah in the South !! To the North of this boarding house were two tennis courts where the European ladies and gentlemen of the station often came to play tennis with the Rajkumars !!

     Play Ground:

A small plot to the West of the college building was the only playground where the Rajkumars and their staff played cricket, football, and hockey !! In 1905, Mr. J. H. Smith, the principal, inaugurated the Central India Sports Association (C.I.S.A.)  whose first meeting was held on this ground !! Popular game during the time was polo, where the Rajkumars got their own ponies !! Besides riding there were physical and company drills, fencing, bayonet exercise, lance practice, sword exercise, boxing, and torchlight parable !! In 1906, a separate football ground was made in the extreme north of the compound !!

Between 1899 and 1905, the times were tough for the College, as there had also been talks of closing it down !! However, as luck would have it, Major Hugh Daly, son of founder Henry Daly, was appointed as the Agent to Indore of the Governor General !! He wowed to bring the College back to its rightful glory as a Chiefs’ College !! He then persuaded the ruling Holkars of Indore to donate land and to other chiefs to donate money for building a grand new campus of the Daly College !! He also managed a grant from the Central Government !!

Accordingly, in 1909, as Holkars generously donated 118 acres of land, the college moved to its present premises, with construction started on buildings there !! The existing building and the boarding houses were handed over to the Medical School !!

The Daly College’s main building, which is the Indore’s pride, was completed in 1912, and was conceived by Hugh Daly, designed by Col. Swinton Jacob, built by CPWD of unpolished Udaipur marble, and donated by numerous chiefs of various princely states in Central India !! The clock tower was donated by Maharaja Gaekwad of Baroda !! This building is one of the finest examples of Indo - Saracenic style of architecture - it has Western concepts with Mughal arches and Rajput Chhattris (domes) !! It was inaugurated by the Viceroy of India, Lord Hardinge, in November 1912 !!

After the outbreak of the First World War, Daly College was converted into the Training School for Indian Army Cadets in 1918, whose most famous cadet in Indore was Cadet K. M. Cariappa, who later became independent India’s first Army Chief and was also appointed as the Field Marshal !! Also, the cadet who later became Pakistan’s first Army Chief was trained here as well !!

In 1920, after the war had ended, the College was back to normal, as the institute for quality education to chiefs & their children !!

Electricity was connected to College buildings in 1928, and alumni association also formed in the same year, science laboratories & squash courts were built in 1929, new library & laboratories in 1938, swimming pool in 1940, and so on !! 

By 1932, more than 50% of Central India’s ruling princes had either studied here or were still receiving education !! In the same year, 3 of its Old Boys were also selected to attend the Round Table Conference in London !! 

The very important & significant people to visit DC at various times in its history before India’s independence included major rulers of Indian States, officers of East India Company, nine Viceroys of India, HRH The Prince of Wales, and the Earl of Cromer !! 

By 1939, revolutionary changes were being brought in at DC when it was being converted into a Public School from a Chiefs’ College !! In that year, it started admitting some students who were not from the families of Chiefs, and upon merit in 1940 !!  

When a student at DC, Kr. Rameshwar Pratap Singh of Kacchi Baroda, with Col. C. K. Nayudu and four others, in 1945 featured in a world record, yet unbroken, when they hit six centuries (one each) in single-innings of cricket match, when they played for the Holkar Team that scored 912 for 8 wickets (declared), against Mysore !! Another Old Boy of the Class of 1947 - Mr. Jall Cowasji - graduated from the Harvard Business School, USA during this time !!

In 1950, Mr. Zutshi was the first Indian to become the principal of the Daly College, and also the first time a lady was the chief guest at its annual prize giving (APG) function - the Maharani of Indore !! 

Since then, DC and its students have been scaling new records in various fields including academics, sports, cultural activities, internationalism, social service and so on !! 

Some of the famous students from DC have been:

HH Maharaja Tukoji Rao Holkar of Indore

Balwant Rao Scindia, S/o Maharaja of Gwalior

HH the Raja of Dewas and HH the Raja of Ratlam

Various Rajkumars, Kumars, and Thakurs from Alirajpur, Amleta, Bagli, Dewas, Dhar, Gwalior, Jhabua, Kacchi Baroda, Panna, Ratlam, Rewa, etc. !!

Mr. M. V. Kibe

Field Marshal K. M. Cariappa (Training School for Indian Army Cadets at DC)

Mr. Raj Singh Dungarpur (former president of Board of Control for Cricket in India [BCCI] & Indian cricketer)

Dr. C. S. Ranawat (World-famous Orthopaedic Surgeon)

Dr. Raghubir Singh of Sitamau (Indian politician, Member of Parliament [Upper House])

Mr. Rameshwar Pratap Singh (Indian first-class cricketer & world-record holder)

Mr. Hanumant Singh (Indian cricketer & International Cricket Council match referee)

Lt. Col. Ajit Singh of Bidwal (Indian Army personnel & famous polo player)

HH Tukoji Rao Puar of Dewas (Indian politician, MLA, and former minister, Madhya Pradesh [MP] Government) 

Mr. (Raja) Digvijay Singh (Indian politician, Member of Parliament [Upper House], and former chief minister, Madhya Pradesh [MP] Government) 

Mr. Lakshman Singh (Indian politician, Member of Parliament [Lower House] and MLA)   

Prof. Prabhat Patnaik (famous Indian Marxist economist, UN-appointed member of high-power task force, and political commentator)   

Mr. K. K. Bhatnagar

Mr. Deepak Obhrai (Canadian politician, Member of Parliament, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Foreign Affairs)

Dr. Dhiraj Bora (World-famous Scientist & Deputy Director General at ITER, Europe) 

Mr. Vikram Rajadhyaksha (Renowned architectural consultant & Green energy businessman in USA) 

Mr. Gajendra Singh Sareen (Famous multi-millionaire entrepreneur in Singapore) 

Mr. Priyo Kumar Singh (Commandant of Manipur Rifles and President’s Medal awardee)

Col. Ali Adil Mahmood (Commandant of the President’s Bodyguard)

Col. Akshadeep Bhanot (Commandant of the President’s Bodyguard)

Mr. Vijayendra Ghatge (Indian actor)

Mr. Kiran Kumar (Indian actor)

Mr. Arun Yadav (Indian politician, Member of Parliament [Lower House], and former Union Cabinet minister, Government of India)

Mr. Gautam Bhandari (Businessman and co-founder, iSquared Capital - a world-renowned private equity firm from USA)

Mr. Sachin Yadav (Indian politician, Member of Parliament [Lower House], and former minister, Government of Madhya Pradesh [MP])

Besides the nine Viceroys of India & the British Royalty, the very famous personalities to have visited DC after independence have been (in chronological order of the visit):

Field Marshal K. M. Cariappa as the Chief of Army Staff

Ms. Vijaylakshmi Pandit as India’s first ‘First Lady’

Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru as India’s first prime minister

Mr. Sheikh Abdullah as the Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir

Mr. K. M. Wanchoo as the Chief Justice of Rajasthan

Dr. Rajendra Prasad as the first President of Republic of India

General J. N. Chaudhuri as the Chief of Army Staff of India

Ms. (Rajmata) Vijaya Raje Scindia (famous Indian Royalty & politician)

Mr. Shivmangal Singh Suman (world-renowned Hindi poet) as VC of Vikram University, Ujjain

Admiral S. M. Nanda as the Chief of Naval Staff of India

Ms. (Maharani) Usha Devi Holkar of Indore (famous Indian Royalty)

Air Chief Marshal O. P. Mehra as the Chief of Air Staff of India

Dr. (Maharaja) Karan Singh of Kashmir (Union Cabinet Minister, Government of India)

Mr. Jagjivan Ram (Union Defence Minister, Government of India)

Mr. Arjun Singh (Chief Minister, Government of Madhya Pradesh, India)

Mr. P. C. Sethi (Union Home Minister, Government of India)

Mr. Bishen Singh Bedi (famous Indian cricketer)

Mr. Ashok Kumar (famous Indian film star)

Sir Vivian Richards (legendary international cricketer from West Indies)

Mr. Sunil Gavaskar (legendary international cricketer from India)

Mr. (Maharaja) Madhav Rao Scindia (famous Indian Royalty, politician, and Member of Parliament)

General A. S. Vaidya as the Chief of Army Staff of India

Mr. Gyani Zail Singh as the seventh President of India

Mr. Raj Kapoor (legendary Indian film actor)

Mr. Randhir Kapoor (famous Indian film actor)

Mr. Jahangir Khan & Mr. Chris Dittmar (legendary international squash players)

Mr. Nani Palkhiwala (India’s leading legal luminary)

Mr. (Maharaja) Jyotiraditya Scindia (Indian politician, Member of Parliament, and Union Cabinet Minister, Government of India)

Padma Bhushan R. K. Laxman (India’s most famous cartoonist)

Dr. C. S. Ranawat (Old Dalian & World-famous orthopaedic surgeon)

Mr. Mukesh D. Ambani (one of India’s leading businessmen)

Mr. (Maharaja) Gaj Singh of Jodhpur

Ms. Neeta Mukesh Ambani (one of India’s leading philanthropists & business-women)

Mr. Jaswant Singh (Union Finance Minister, Government of India)

Capt. Amarindar Singh of Patiala as the Chief Minister, Government of Punjab, India

Mr. Mahesh Bhupati (India’s famous tennis player)

Mr. Narain Karthikeyan (India’s famous F1 Driver)

Mr. Sachin Pilot (Indian politician, Member of Parliament, and Union Cabinet Minister, Government of India)

Ms. Vasundhara Raje (Chief Minister, Government of Rajasthan, India)

Mr. Malvinder Mohan Singh (one of India’s leading businessmen)

Ms. Sridevi & Mr. Boney Kapoor (famous Indian film actors)

Mr. Javed Akhtar (one of India’s most famous lyricists, script-writers, and authors)

HM King Constantine II of the Hellenes as the president of the Round Square 

Padma Bhushan R. K. Pachauri (Chairperson, Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change)

Mr. Rahul Dravid (famous Indian cricketer)

Mr. Deepak Obhrai (Old Dalian, Canadian politician, and Member of Parliament, Canada)

Dr. Balram Jakhar (Governor, Madhya Pradesh, India)

Mr. Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Chief Minister, Government of Madhya Pradesh, India)

Ms. Sumitra Mahajan (Indian politician, Member of Parliament, Union Cabinet Minister, Government of India)

Mr. Naveen Jindal (One of India’s leading businessmen, politician)

Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia (deputy chairman of the Planning Commission of India)

Mr. Arvind Singhji Mewar (famous Indian Royalty)

Mr. Kamal Nath (Indian politician, Member of Parliament, and Union Cabinet Minister, Government of India)

Air Chief Marshal N. A. K. Browne  as the Chief of Air Staff of India

Mr. Anand Sharma (Indian politician, Member of Parliament, and Union Cabinet Minister, Government of India)

General V. K. Singh as the Chief of Army Staff of India

Dr. Shashi Tharoor, (Indian politician, Member of Parliament, and Minister, Government of India)

Mr. Ramesh Agrawal (Chairman, Dainik Bhaskar group)

Mr. Vineet Joshi (Chairman, CBSE, India)

Mr. Viswanathan Anand (Chess Grandmaster)

Mr. Daly (Great grand son of Sir Henry Daly, DC's founder)

General Bipin Rawat as the Chief of Army Staff of India

Ms. Sumitra Mahajan (Speaker of Lok Sabha, Member of Parliament, Government of India)

Mr. Kamal Nath (Chief Minister, Government of Madhya Pradesh, India)




[Information has been compiled from various sources including first-hand accounts of old students, students, teachers, principals, other staff, the book 'The Daly College', the websites & Facebook pages of The Daly College and Old Dalians' Association (ODA), magazines, etc.]

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