Sophia Duleep Singh was born in 1876 in Norfolk, daughter of the Maharaja Duleep Singh, deposed ruler of the Punjab. After annexation in 1849, the Maharaja converted to Christianity and settled in England, then Paris.
After her mother’s death Sophia was sent to live and be educated in Brighton, where she remained for 4 years at Miss Parkinson’s School, leaving in 1894. In 1896, Queen Victoria, her Godmother, gave Sophia a home at Hampton Palace, where she lived for most of her adult life.
Sophia was a feminist, her main focus being the women’s suffrage movement. She joined the Women’s Social and Political Union in 1909 and became an active campaigner in Richmond, Surrey. She was present at the Black Friday events on 18 November 1910 and reportedly shielded a woman from attack. Sophia sold Suffragette newspapers outside Hampton Court Palace and publicly supported the use of violence against property. She stuck a ‘Votes for Women’ poster to the Prime Minister’s car and joined the Tax Resistance League. Her jewellery was impounded, but bought back at auction by fellow TRL members.
During the First World War Sophia often visited wounded Indian soldiers in Brighton’s Royal Pavilion, but was not permitted to nurse there. She eventually became a Red Cross nurse. She said her life’s purpose was “the advancement of women.”