London: British Indian historian, author, and art collector Peter Bance has loaned a major chunk of his extensive Maharaja Duleep Singh collection for a new royal exhibition to shine the spotlight on the last Sikh ruler’s daughters.
The exhibition, “The Last Princesses of Punjab”, which opened at Kensington Palace in London on March 25, revolves around Princess Sophia Duleep Singh and her extraordinary life as an activist for women’s voting rights as a suffragette in 20th-century England.
Her fellow British Indian princess sisters, her German mother, Bamba Muller, grandmother Maharani Jind Kaur, and godmother Queen Victoria, as great influences in her life, are among those showcased to mark Sophia’s 150th birth anniversary this year.
“Princess Sophia Duleep Singh is best known as a suffragette who fought for women’s right to vote, using her position to further the cause,” said Historic Royal Palaces, the charity that cares for England’s palaces.
“Along with her sisters Catherine and Bamba, Sophia inherited a rich but complex heritage from both sides of her family. The women expressed and connected to this in different ways,” it said, with reference to the exhibition.
The exhibition coincides with the launch of Bance’s new book, “The Last Royals of Lahore: The Duleep Singhs”, a voluminous coffee-table tome packed with newly discovered archival material and exclusive firsthand accounts from those who knew this British Punjabi royal family intimately.
Duleep Singh, the son and heir of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the 19th-century founder of the Sikh Empire, was famously exiled to England as a teenager in 1854.
