Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary

by Anand, Anita

  With her duty done, Bamba stripped Rathenrea and Hilden Hall of all their furnishings, selling what she could in local antique shops and disposing of more expensive items through London auctioneers. She then put both houses on the market, bought a ticket for Pakistan and left England for the last time. With Sophia gone, ties to the land of her enemy had at last been severed. Bamba returned to Lahore and lived out the rest of her days with only Pir-ji for company. Till the end, she described herself as ‘The Queen of Punjab’. She died in 1957 of a heart attack. Her remains are buried in a graveyard at Lahore’s Christian cemetery.

  Though she lived through some of the key moments in modern British and Indian history, and took part in some of the most significant struggles for democracy and freedom, surprisingly little has been written about Sophia Duleep Singh. That her family line died with her generation certainly did not help, nor did the fact that she alone took on the mantle of family archivist; although her sisters’ and brothers’ letters were lovingly collected, Sophia never thought to keep copies of her own correspondence. A few of her letters have turned up in disparate private collections, and Sophia’s voice might have been all but lost were it not for the fact that her diary was passed on to the British Library, and three people who knew her well who lived to speak at length and in great detail for the purposes of this book.

  Sophia’s later prickly relationship with the establishment also helped to bury many traces of her. The princess’s name can be found in the Royal Archives, but only if one knows what to ask for. Despite monitoring her every move, and intercepting her letters, the British government’s actions contributed the most to wiping Sophia from the official record. They kept her from India as long as they could, and were determined that her presence in England should be inconspicuous. To that end they resorted to underhand methods, as shown by their conduct over her wartime charity efforts. It is ironic that in their enthusiasm to push Sophia out of view, their meticulous bureaucracy has provided an indelible outline of her place in the world.

  Historians of British-Sikh origin have done the most to preserve the legacy of Duleep Singh and his children. None more so than the historian Peter Bance, who has diligently collected family ephemera, letters and photographs, all of which are fragments of this exceptional story. The UK Punjab Heritage Association can also be credited with some exemplary work in bringing the story of Maharajah Duleep Singh to a new and enthusiastic generation of Sikhs. In India, although Ranjit Singh and his son are still held in high regard, and much has been written about them, there has been little appetite to celebrate the anglicised family of the deposed Duleep. After independence, India and Pakistan had the likes of Gandhi, Nehru and Jinnah to venerate; politicians now provide the subcontinent with its dynastic drama.

  What of the suffragettes who bore her nothing but goodwill – why did they not celebrate Princess Sophia more prominently? The reasons are a little more complicated here. There were so many heroic women who served with Emmeline Pankhurst, but a handful of names eclipse all others. They are the women who risked their very lives in the fight for the vote. Despite her best and repeated efforts, Sophia never managed to be sent to prison, and therefore was denied her chance to go on hunger strike and take her place in the pantheon of WSPU giants. Not even when she threw herself at the prime minister’s car would the police and courts punish her as they punished others of lower rank. Thanks to the excellent work of historians such as Elizabeth Crawford, Diane Atkinson and most especially Rozina Visram, and the mainly negative reports of the princess’s activities in the international press, clues as to Sophia’s part in the movement are there to see. As a suffragette, Sophia was enormously important. It was she who exported the WSPU notion of electoral equality to India, the world’s greatest democracy.

  All of these sources have helped to tell the story of what Sophia did, but not who she was. That knowledge came from those who knew her personally and were touched by her life. I will be forever grateful to Shirley Phimister, née Sarbutt, for generously sharing her time and recollections with me.

  Michael Sarbutt, Sophia’s ‘little pickle’, emigrated to New Zealand in his twenties. He never spoke about his time with Princess Sophia to his own wife or children after he settled there. It was while his family were sorting through his belongings after Michael’s death in 2002 that they discovered a mysterious box. Perplexed, they found a letter containing Michael’s last wishes along with several black and white photographs that they had never seen before. The pictures appeared to have been taken with a box Brownie and showed a young Michael and his brother and sister playing in an orchard. There were also photographs of an elderly Indian woman. The letter asked that Michael’s ashes be scattered on the earth around Sophia’s old house. He wanted to go back to the place he had been happiest in his life.4

  It was left to his sister Shirley to explain the story of Princess Sophia to Michael’s grieving family. She also took them back to Buckinghamshire in order to carry out his wishes in 2004. Her brother John had also moved to New Zealand and was in poor health at the time so she alone accompanied Michael’s family to the place where they had sheltered during the war. When she reached the place, just off the Hammersley Road, Shirley found that Rathenrea was not as it once was. The building had been modified and expanded, making way for new housing. The family scattered Michael’s remains around the orchard, just as he had wanted. Shirley said as she did so, she could almost see the young boy her brother had been, scampering through the trees beside Princess Sophia in her furs and wellington boots, surrounded by dogs. Today, living in west London, she describes her time in Penn as ‘magical’ and ‘the happiest’, adding that not a day goes by when she does not think about her beloved princess.5

  I had almost given up hope of finding Sophia’s goddaughter, Drovna. Many months of fruitless searching had yielded nothing. However, one day in July 2012, in response to one of scores of answerphone messages I had left with potential leads, I received a phonecall. ‘My name is Drovna – what do you want with my Princess?’ she asked in a somewhat challenging tone. We spent almost an hour on the phone, and then Drovna asked me if I would like to come and stay with her. Those days in Pembrokeshire yielded a treasure trove of memories. According to Bosie’s daughter, the night Sophia died, part of her mother died too. She suffered a mental collapse in the months that followed and it took many months for her to recover. Even after years had passed, she still found it very difficult to talk about Sophia.6

  Drovna grew up, got married and had children of her own, one of whom married a Sikh. She still surrounds herself with keepsakes left by Sophia. Drovna could tell me what the princess liked to eat, how she laughed and how she moved and sat. Thanks to her mother’s memories which had been passed on to her, she was able to fill in many gaps, even telling me about the time leading up to her death. Sophia had only had days to live when she asked Bosie to keep a few things aside to give to her goddaughter as presents after she had gone. She wanted Drovna to get something every year until she reached the age of majority.7 The princess had enough time facing her mortality to make such decisions while she lived and elected not to leave these items in her will but to pass them on while she still lived. A small part of her must have worried that Bamba might just contest any legal document and she did not want to put her loved ones through that. Drovna treasures her keepsakes but also remembers her ‘solemn vow’ to Sophia. At every general election, she makes sure that she goes out to vote. She feels the enormity of the task each and every time.

  As far as her place in history is concerned, Sophia was perhaps her own worst enemy. She never sought glory and disliked speaking in public. Before her death, when asked to contribute to her entry in the women’s Who’s Who, Sophia Duleep Singh’s was one of the briefest in the book. Under ‘interests’ she wrote just one line: ‘The Advancement of Women’.

  Notes

  Abbreviations

  BDS Bamba Duleep Singh

  BL British Library

&nbs
p; CDS Catherine Duleep Singh

  HC Deb House of Commons Debate

  HL Deb House of Lords Debate

  HMSO Her Majesty’s Stationery Office

  HO Home Office

  IOR India Office Records

  MEPO Metropolitan Police Records

  QVM Michael Alexander and Sushila Anand, Queen Victoria’s Maharajah, Duleep Singh, 1838–93, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1980

  RA Royal Archives

  SDS Sophia Duleep Singh

  TNA The National Archives, Kew

  Prologue

  1 The photograph is held in the Suffragette Collection, Museum of London.

  Chapter 1 – Roots of Rebellion

  1 State Opening of Parliament, 12 Feb 1876.

  2 The Tablet, p. 14, 12 Feb 1876.

  3 The Battle of the Ten Kings is mentioned in the ancient Hindu text the ‘Rig Veda’ and also forms the basis of the Mahabharata, one of the most sacred texts in Hinduism.

  4 In the spring of 327 BC, Alexander and his army marched into India invading the Punjab. At a brutal battle by the river Hydaspes he lost his beloved horse Bucephalus. Alexander would later be seriously wounded by an arrow which pierced his armour and lodged in his ribcage.

  5 The stories of Guru Nanak’s childhood are found in the Sikh texts, the Janamsakhis, literally translated ‘birth stories’. The most influential of these is the Bhai Bala Janamsakhi, said to be written by Bala Sandhu, a contemporary of Nanak.

  6 Akal Ustat, Verse 85–86.

  7 William Dalrymple, Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan, Bloomsbury, London, 2013, p. 10.

  8 Prinsep, James, History of the Punjab, Vol. II, W. H. Allen, London, 1846, reprinted Patiala, 1970, p. 174.

  9 The Letters of Queen Victoria, Project Gutenberg eBook,Vol 2, (1844–1853), Marquis of Dalhousie to Queen Victoria, Simla, 15 May 1850.

  10 John Clark Marshman, The History of India from the Earliest Period to the Close of Lord Dalhousie’s Administration in Three Volumes, Vol. 3, 1867, p. 289.

  11 Sir Herbert Benjamin Edwardes and Herman Merivale, The Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, Vol. 2, Smith, Elder & Co., London, 1872, p. 91.

  12 See www.globalsikhstudies.net

  13 Ganda Singh (ed.), Maharajah Duleep Singh Correspondence, Patiala, Punjab University, 1972, p. 90.

  14 Rani Jindan to J. Lawrence, undated, trans. from Punjabi, in ibid., p. 26.

  15 Ibid.

  16 Letter from Hardinge to Eliot, 27 Aug 1847, in ibid., p. 32.

  17 Hardinge to Lawrence, 14 Aug 1847, Edwardes and Merivale, Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, p. 100.

  18 Avtar Singh Gill, Lahore Darbar and Rani Jindan, Central Publishers, Punjab, 1983, p. 231.

  19 G. Singh, Correspondence, Rani Jindan to J. Lawrence, 30 Aug 1847, trans. from Punjabi, p. 27.

  20 Lady Lena Login, Sir John Login and Duleep Singh, W. H. Allen & Co., London, 1890, p. 450.

  21 Lady Lena Login: Lady Login’s Recollections, Court Life and Camp Life, 1820–1904, Smith, Elder & Co., London, 1916, p. 88.

  Chapter 2 – Do Not Be Conspicuous

  1 Queen Victoria’s Journal, 6 Jul 1854, RA.

  2 Login, Recollections, p. 116.

  3 Peter Bance, Sovereign, Squire and Rebel: Maharajah Duleep Singh, Coronet House Publishing Ltd, London, 2009, p. 38; Login, Sir John Login, p. 343.

  4 Queen Victoria’s Journal, 10 Jul 1854, RA.

  5 Login, Recollections, p. 123.

  6 Ibid., p. 124.

  7 Ibid.

  8 Ibid., p. 125.

  9 Ibid.

  10 Ibid.

  11 Ibid., p. 126.

  12 As a comparison the Graf Pink, the most expensive diamond sold in recent history, was sold for $46 million sixty years ago. It is 24.78 carats, compared to the 106 carats of the Koh-I-Noor.

  13 Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 24 Aug 1857.

  14 Jules Verne, The Demon of Cawnpore, Scribner, New York, 1881.

  15 The meeting is immortalised in Punjabi ballads: ‘Dukhiye Ma Putt’ by Sohan Singh Sital (in Punjabi).

  16 QVM, p. 92.

  17 Login, Recollections, p. 211.

  18 Lady Normanby to Lord Mulgrave, 2 Jul 1861, Normanby Archives, QVM, p. 93.

  19 Letter from Duleep Singh to Login, Jul 1861, Login, Sir John Login, p. 463.

  20 Christy Campbell, The Maharajah’s Box, HarperCollins, London, 2001, p. 58.

  21 Letter from Duleep Singh to Login, Sep 1861, Login, Sir John Login, p. 465.

  22 Letter from Sir Charles Phipps to Login, 4 Jan 1862, in ibid., p. 470.

  23 The Times, 6 Aug 1863.

  24 Login, Recollections, p. 229.

  25 Rena L. Hogg, A Master-Builder on the Nile: Being a Record of the Life and Aims of John Hogg, United Presbyterian Board of Publication, Pittsburgh, 1914.

  26 Ibid.

  27 Letter from Lady Leven to Lady Login, 29 Jul 1864, Login, Recollections, p. 240.

  Chapter 3 – The Suffolk Mahal

  1 Ipswich Journal, 30 May 1863.

  2 The Maharajah Duleep Singh and the Government: A Narrative, Ballantyne, Hanson & Co., London, 1884.

  3 Kelly’s Directory for Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk, 1883, p. 870.

  4 Author interview with Lord Iveagh, owner of Elveden Hall. On the £30,000 for the remodelling, see letter Duleep Singh to Lord Salisbury, undated [Jan 1878], 010/22, RA.

  5 See www.census-helper.co.uk/victorian-life

  6 The figure of £30,000 equates to around £3.1 million in 2013, according to the Bank of England inflation calculator.

  7 The Field, No. 2131, 28 Oct 1893.

  8 On display at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

  9 Author interview with Lord Iveagh.

  10 Letters from the Maharajah and his wife Bamba, 1864–86, undated, Mss Eur E377/1, Select Materials, BL India Office.

  11 The Field, No. 2131, 28 Oct 1893.

  12 ‘The Uncle Jack Column’, Newcastle Weekly Courant, issue 11403, 5 Aug 1893.

  13 Letters from Catherine and Bamba to Sophia use both names, Mss Eur E377/4, BL Mss Eur E377/5; see also letters from Prince Albert Edward, Mss Eur 377/9, Select Materials, BL India Office.

  14 Mss Eur E377/1.

  15 The Art of Falconry: Being the De Arte Venandi Cum Avibus of Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, trans. Florence Marjorie Fyfe and Casey A. Wood, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1969, p. 452.

  16 Peter Bance, The Duleep Singhs: The Photographic Album of Queen Victoria’s Maharajah, Sutton Press, London, 2004, p. 46.

  17 Engraved bells from the collection of Catherine Drovna Oxley.

  18 Letter from HRH Prince of Wales to R. H. Bob Collins, 6 Dec 1876, private collection of Peter Bance.

  19 H. Gladstone, Record Bags and Shooting Records, H. F. Whitherby, London, 1930.

  20 Author interview with Lord Iveagh.

  21 Messrs Coutts and Co. to Duleep Singh, 9 Jan 1878, QVM, p. 122.

  22 QVM, p. 128.

  23 Queen Victoria to Duleep Singh, 12 Aug 1878, QVM, p. 129.

  24 Ibid.

  Chapter 4 – The Fall

  1 Queen Victoria to the Marquis of Dalhousie, 24 Nov 1854, QVM, p. 64.

  2 One of the Old Brigade, London in the Sixties, Everett & Co. Ltd, London, 1908, Project Gutenberg eBook, Chapter XV.

  3 Ibid.

  4 Duleep Singh to Lord Hertford (a shooting friend who claimed to have some influence over Duleep Singh), undated, Hertford Archives.

  5 Duleep Singh to Queen Victoria, 13 Sep 1880, QVM, p. 138.

  6 Queen Victoria to Duleep Singh, 18 Sep 1880, QVM, p. 139.

  7 Maharajah Duleep Singh and Evans Bell, The Annexation of the Punjaub, Trubner & Co., London, 1882.

  8 The Times, 31 Aug 1882.

  9 Duleep Singh to Kimberley, 1 Mar 1883, QVM, p. 167.

  10 Ibid.

  11 Ibid.

  12 Kimberly to Duleep Singh, 21 Mar 1883, QVM, p. 168.

  13 Hertford to Ponsonby, 28 July 1883, QVM, p. 169.

  14 Ibid. />
  15 Bill of sale from Philips Son & Neale, Jul 1883, reproduced in QVM, p. 171.

  16 Ibid.

  17 The Times, 20 Jul 1883.

  18 Duleep Singh to Palace, memo 15 Dec 1883, QVM, p. 177.

  19 Julian Osgood Field, Uncensored Recollections, Eveleigh Nash & Grayson, London, 1924, p. 236.

  20 Duleep Singh to Ponsonby, 18 July 1884, QVM, p. 178.

  21 Ibid.

  22 Queen Victoria memo to Ponsonby, 2 Aug 1883, QVM, p. 170.

  23 Queen Victoria to Duleep Singh, 13 Sep 1884, QVM, p. 180.

  24 Duleep Singh to Queen Victoria, 16 Sep 1884, QVM, p. 182.

  25 Author interview with Shirley Sarbutt.

  26 Ibid.

  27 Osgood Field, Uncensored, p. 238.

  28 A recurring theme in the letters between the sisters; see IOR Mss Eur E377/4/5/6.

  29 IOR Mss Eur E377/10.

  30 The Times, 23 May 1886.

  31 ‘Abstract of Political Intelligence’, Punjab Police, No. 11, 20 Mar 1886, G. Singh, Correspondence, p. 330.

  32 Record of interview between Lord Kimberley and Duleep Singh, IOR L/P&S 18/D25 (194), 8 Feb 1886.

  33 Standard, 25 Mar 1886.

  34 Duleep Singh to Queen Victoria, 31 Mar 1886, QVM, p. 209.

  Chapter 5 – Scramble for India

  1 See www.clydesite.co.uk

  2 See www.poheritage.com

  3 Letters from BDS to Mrs Lansing, 15 Apr 1886, IOR Mss Eur E377/1.

  4 Delhi No. II, 1 May 1886, G. Singh, Correspondence, p. 301.

  5 IOR L/P&S/18/D25.

  6 ‘From Resident Aden to Foreign, Simla’, telegram, 21 Apr 1886, G. Singh, Correspondence, p. 286.

  7 Lahore Tribune, 1 May 1887.

  8 Queen Victoria to Lord Dufferin, 10 Jun 1886, RA 09/52.

  9 Duleep Singh to Dufferin, 12 May 1886, G. Singh, Correspondence, p. 341.

  10 Lieutenant Governor to Foreign Secretary, Government of India, 14 May 1886, ibid., p. 342.

  11 Literally translated it means ‘The City of Bliss’.

  12 Members of the Sikh brotherhood, or Khalsa, were asked, just as they are today, to follow the ‘Five Ks’. The Ks represent Kesh, uncut hair; Kara, the wearing of a steel bracelet; Kanga, the carrying of a wooden comb; Kachha, the wearing of simple cotton undergarments; and Kirpan, the carrying at all times of a blade. Each of these observances possessed a symbolic significance. The uncut hair signified an acceptance of a simple life free of vanity. The bracelet reminded the wearer that God had no beginning and no end; it was made of steel rather than precious metal to ensure that the rich could never flaunt their wealth through the wearing of it. The comb represented pride in appearance, for the Sikhs believed that a well-groomed man had a well-ordered mind. The Kachha, simple undershorts that came to the knee, were a reminder that Sikhs should control their sexual desire. Finally all Sikhs were commanded to carry the blade, or Kirpan, which could range in size from a five-inch dagger to a three-foot sword; these weapons were meant to transform the Sikhs into ‘soldier saints’. The word Kirpan itself had two roots: Kirpa, meaning ‘mercy’, and Aan, meaning ‘honour’. Whosoever took up the Kirpan was automatically sworn to uphold justice and protect the weak.