On the face of it, Sophia Duleep Singh seems an unlikely suffragette. Born the daughter of the last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire, a favourite of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, she grew up in the lap of luxury. She was Victoria’s goddaughter (Victoria was notably against women’s suffrage) and wanted for very little. Moreover, Britain stole everything from her family when the East India Company forced her father into exile when he was a young boy; why would Sophia go on to fight for British women’s rights to vote?
The answer at least in part lies in a life-changing trip to India Singh took with her sister, Bamba, in 1903. She had never been before, born in England after her father’s exile. Her father had tried, when Singh was nine, to uproot their family and take them into Punjab, where he believed their presence would spark a revolution. Instead, the family were detained and eventually brought back to England, now impoverished after the Maharaja left them.
To Singh’s great fortune, the queen intervened. She had been incredibly fond of the Maharaja and hadn’t hesitated in agreeing to be Singh’s godmother. She controlled Singh’s schooling after her mother, too, died, granted her Faraday House in the Hampton Court estate, and gave her an allowance to maintain it. Singh became a celebrity in London and she was incredibly active in aristocratic society.
By 1903, the British government had lessened their watch on Singh. This gave her the opportunity to sneak into India, desperate as she was to attend the Delhi Durbar, a celebration of Edward VII’s coronation. There, she experienced racism for the first time, becoming a second-class citizen on account of her race. She saw first-hand the poverty and suffering that were pervasive in the country and heard the cry of ‘Awaz doh’ – ‘Give us a voice’.
The experience changed Singh and, upon returning to England, she heard the same cry coming from the mouths of British suffragettes. She joined the WSPU and quickly worked her way into the Pankhursts’ inner circle, being particularly active in the Richmond and Kingston-upon-Thames branches.
Singh’s title of Princess was useful – already famous, her activities in the movement attracted a great deal of press and allowed her certain liberties others didn’t have access to. It also worked against her, as the establishment refused to arrest her. She longed to join the hunger strike, but it seems that the image of a princess starving and ultimately being force-fed was one that the Liberals wanted to avoid at all costs.
She repeatedly refused to pay taxes and was often fined for it. Several times, she was relieved of jewellery, which was sent to the auction house, bought by fellow suffragettes, and returned to Singh. She also spoiled her 1911 census papers and sold the suffragette newspaper, The Suffragette, outside Hampton Court Palace no matter the weather.
No Vote, No Census. As women do not count, they refuse to be counted. I have a conscientious objection to filling up this form.
Sophia Duleep Singh on her 1911 census return
Singh thoroughly frustrated the British government. “Have we no hold on her?” George V once asked. It seems they did not; even when threatened with eviction, Singh continued her activism.
The suffragettes are now most famous for their militant activities, and Singh was certainly no stranger to these. She raised money for this very purpose, and on one occasion, she threw herself in front of Prime Minister Asquith’s car, slamming a ‘Votes for Women’ poster against the window. One of her most notable contributions to the movement, however, was her participation in Black Friday in 1910.
On 18 November 1910, Singh, Emmeline Pankhurst, and around 300 other suffragettes went to the House of Commons, hoping for a meeting with Asquith. He refused and the women were rebuffed with violence despite not being violent towards the police themselves. 200 women were sexually assaulted and two would later die from their injuries. Singh was personally involved in the brutality when she fought off a policeman who was battering a suffragette. She then gave chase in order to discover his identification number so she could make a formal complaint.
“The policeman was unnecessarily and brutally rough and Princess Sophia hopes he will be suitably punished,” she stated.
Singh was tireless in her activism and, after the vote was granted in 1918, she remained a member of the Suffragette Fellowship until her death.
Through all of this, Singh never forgot her Indian heritage and formed close ties with the Sikh community in London. During World War One, she tended to wounded Indian soldiers, who were amazed to see the Princess in person, and organised ‘India Day’ in 1918 in support of India’s soldiers and Labour Corps.
She returned to India with Bamba once more in 1924, wearing a badge promoting women’s suffrage. This visit was somewhat emotional for the sisters and caused a great deal of excitement among the people of Lahore, some shouting ‘We are with you, we will give you the world.’
Singh lived out the remainder of her life in England. She and her sister Catherine took in some evacuees during World War Two, when they were living together in Buckinghamshire. The three children remembered their time there fondly.
Princess Sophia died in her sleep on 22 August 1948, aged 72. She requested that her ashes be scattered in India.
Singh was not the only Indian woman involved in the fight for women’s rights in Britain, but she was certainly one of the most famous. She held the cause close to her until the end, years after the fight for suffrage was won writing that her only interest was ‘the advancement of women’.
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