Princess Sophia Duleep Singh

Princess Sophia Alexandra Duleep Singh was born in England on 8 August 1876. Her father was Maharaja Duleep Singh, the youngest son of Maharaja Ranjit Singh and the last ruler of the Sikh Empire. At the age of ten he had surrendered the Punjab to the British in 1849 and handed the Koh-i-Noor to Queen Victoria. Her mother was Bamba Müller. Queen Victoria was her godmother. By 1887 her father had left the family and her mother had died, and Victoria chose the Oliphant family as guardians for the children (London Museum). In the 1890s the Queen gave Sophia and her sisters a grace-and-favour home, Faraday House at Hampton Court. Sources give 1896 and 1898 for the grant.

In 1903 she went to the Delhi Durbar, uninvited. The British shunned her and the Sikhs welcomed her warmly (Victorian Web's review of Anita Anand's biography). She spent about six months in India with her sister Bamba in 1906 and 1907, and Wikipedia says she visited Amritsar and Lahore and met independence activists.

The suffrage years

She joined the Women's Social and Political Union in 1909 (Wikipedia) and became a tax resister. On 18 November 1910 she led the march to Parliament for the Conciliation Bill (Victorian Web, London Museum). In 1911 she was fined twice for refusing tax, and her jewellery was seized; members of the Women's Tax Resistance League bought it at auction and returned it to her (London Museum). Wikipedia says she also boycotted the 1911 census. In 1913 she was photographed selling The Suffragette outside Hampton Court.

When the war began in 1914 the WSPU suspended its campaign. She helped the Red Cross raise money for Indian soldiers (London Museum) and served from October 1915 to January 1917 as a Red Cross nurse at an auxiliary hospital in Isleworth, caring for wounded Indian soldiers (Wikipedia). She died on 22 August 1948 at Penn, Buckinghamshire, aged 71. The Victorian Web review notes that she lived to see the British leave and the Punjab divided.

Key moments

• 8 August 1876: born in England.
• 1903: at the Delhi Durbar, welcomed by the Sikhs.
• 1909: joins the WSPU.
• 18 November 1910: leads the march to Parliament.
• 1911: fined, her jewellery seized and bought back for her.
• October 1915 to January 1917: nurses wounded Indian soldiers.
• 22 August 1948: dies at Penn.

What she is remembered for. She is remembered as a princess of the dispossessed Sikh royal house who threw herself into the suffrage cause and, by Anita Anand's account in the Victorian Web review, championed Indian independence too. A Royal Mail stamp marked her in 2018, an English Heritage blue plaque went up near Hampton Court Palace on 26 May 2023, and her name is on the plinth of the Millicent Fawcett statue (Wikipedia, London Museum). The exhibition The Last Princesses of Punjab at Kensington Palace, which runs from 26 March to 8 November 2026, marks 150 years since her birth (Wikipedia, Channel 4).