The Mythic Society and The Daly Memorial hall are inextricably connected.

Mythic Society was Born in 1909. The Daly Memorial Hall was built in 1917 to house the Mythic Society.

The birth of Mythic Society

It was the creation of both the British as well as Indian residents who were eager to know India's life, society and history, in the hope that useful and interesting information might be gathered of the history, growth and source of the civilization in which people lived. The society was the brainchild of F.J. Richards who was the Collector, Bangalore cantonment District under the Madras Presidency. Richards visualised the Mythic Society as an academic 'club'. At a meeting held at his residence on 5th May 1909, a list of members likely to be interested in this 'club' was drawn up. It had seventeen names of both European and Indian residents of Bangalore. Thus was born the Society.

To the great surprise of the founders, the first year membership of the club touched 174!

The creation of Daly Memorial Hall

The beautiful Daly Memorial Hall in Bangalore

It was a French priest who was destined to come to India and to leave his indelible mark on Bangalore in the form of the Daly memorial Hall. Arriving in Bangalore in 1886, the Reverend Father Antoninette Marie Tabard was attached to St. Joseph's College. However, since had come out to India to be a Missionary, teaching didn't satisfy his inner urge and so he appealed to his Bishop Dr.Kleiner to send him out in the District. He wanted to identify himself with the people amongst whom he had to work. He was sent to Mysore to study Tamil under Rev. Father Reautearu.

Upon the death of the Rev. Father Quenard, the Parish Priest of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Father Tabard returned to Bangalore to fill the post. From 1891 to 1926 he remained its Chaplain and Chaplain to the British troops stationed in Bangalore.

Father Tabard was an workaholic; his zeal, his enthusiasm, his popularity and more than all, his remarkable talent of successful beggary helped in the creation of the Mythic Society.

The late Col. Desaraj Urs, it is said, once offered him a pair of white mules. Father Tabard laughingly remarked that a cash donation equivalent to their value would be more welcome to the Mythic Society. The next day the gallant Colonel gave him a pleasant surprise by sending him the pair of mules with a cheque for Rs 500. Father Tabard soon succeeded in obtaining a valuable site of land on Cenotaph Road and erected the "Daly Memorial Hall". He provided it with a very valuable reference library. He started its quarterly journal and established a reserve fund of Rs 10,000. The Mythic Society was thus firmly founded and has rendered valuable service to the State and will continue to render still more valuable service to United Karnataka.

The quaint building, with its distinctly British architecture brightens up its surroundings to this very day.

The Mythic Society ranks amoung many pioneering institutions of its kind like the Royal Asiatic Society of Calcutta or the Bharath Itihasa Samshodhaka Mandal of Pune, which had strived to reconstruct India's past. The Mythic Society's contribution with regard to the history of South India and Karnataka is legendary. Eminent historians and researchers on South India like Dr. J.F. Fleet, Dr. B.J. Rice, Dr. Jouveail Dubreuil, Sir John Marshall, Prof. S. Krishnaswamy Aiyangar, T.A. Gopinath Rao, Mahamahopadhyaya R. Narasimhachar, V. Venkayya, H. Krishna Shastry, Dr. A. Venkatasubbiah, Dr. R. Shama Shastry, Prof. K.N. Shastry, Prof. B.M. Srikantaiah, T.T. Sharman and Dr. M.V. Krishna Rao were closely associated with the Mythic Society and many of their publications saw the light of day in the Quarterly Journal of the Mythic Society.