Sophia Duleep Singh: from socialite to socialist

Princess Sophia Alexandrovna Duleep Singh (1876–1948) had a heritage as confusing as her name. Her father was a deposed Indian maharajah who had been exiled to England, her mother the Cairo-born illegitimate daughter of a German merchant and an Abyssinian slave. The young princess was brought up in considerable splendour on a vast Suffolk estate as a thoroughly anglicised aristocrat who would be presented at court and become an enthusiastic participant in the Season before unexpectedly joining the battle for women’s suffrage.

Anita Anand traces what she calls the ‘roots of rebellion’ to Sophia’s father. Duleep Singh had been proclaimed maharajah of the Punjab at the age of six, after his path to the throne of his putative father, Ranjit Singh, had been cleared rather in the manner of Kind Hearts and Coronets. He inherited a vast Sikh kingdom, a huge fortune, and the Koh-i-noor diamond, all of which he was forced to sign away at the age of 11 when the British annexed the Punjab.

By the time he arrived in England in 1854, Duleep Singh may have lost his kingdom and converted to Christianity, but he still dressed like Indian royalty and at 15 was strikingly handsome, becoming a favourite protégé of Queen Victoria. In recompense for his lost inheritance, he was paid an annual sum of £25,000 (roughly equivalent to £2.5 million today) and bought Elveden Hall in Suffolk, which he completely overhauled so that its interior resembled a Mughal palace and where he entertained on a dangerously lavish scale.

Sophia was the fifth of his six surviving children, but her parents’ marriage was undermined by her father’s profligacy and promiscuity. Duleep Singh eventually ran off with a hotel chambermaid and, unable to pay his huge debts, denounced the British for robbing him — even dubbing Queen Victoria ‘Mrs Fagin’, because he now regarded her as the recipient of stolen goods.