It’s 1913 and a young woman stands at the gates of Hampton Court Palace selling copies of political newspaper, The Suffragette. The sight isn’t out of the ordinary – the movement led by the Women’s Social and Political Union is gaining momentum across the UK, becoming famous for its ‘deeds not words’ campaign – but such an emboldened action, taking politics to the doorstep of the British Royal Family, is shocking. Especially given the fact that this woman, dressed in purple, white, and green and largely being overlooked by passers by, is a princess. 

This episode of Princess Sophia Duleep Singh’s political career did, however, attract the attention of the newspapers, who revealed her identity to the world — much to the frustration of King George V who, upon reading the article, declared, “Have we no hold on her?” It would seem they did not. 

The life of this remarkably rebellious princess is the subject of a new exhibition opening at Kensington Palace today (26 March 2026) to mark her 150^th birthday. It will, for the first time, bring together rarely seen objects and personal stories to illuminate the extraordinary life of Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, alongside the powerful women who shaped her – her sisters Catherine and Bamba, her mother Bamba Müller, grandmother Jind Kaur and godmother Queen Victoria.

Who was Princess Sophia Duleep Singh? 

Princess Sophia Duleep Singh was the daughter of Duleep Singh, the last Sikh Maharajah of the Punjab, who was forced to surrender his lands to the East India Company in 1849, aged just 10 years old. At 15, he was exiled from India at the hands of the colonial British rule which took every last morsel of his family’s fortune, including the famous 105.6ct Koh-i-Noor diamond – now a widely-recognised symbol of colonial exploitation that remains set in a crown commissioned for the late Queen Mother. 

Throughout the exhibition, personal letters, jewellery, and textiles trace the complex and often painful journey of the family following exile. When Singh arrived in England, he struck up a close, almost maternal, friendship with Queen Victoria, who made no secret of her interest in India, eventually becoming Empress in 1857, with Singh’s life in England paid for by the prosperous East India Company. The Queen remained close to the deposed Maharajah and became godmother to two of his eight children, Prince Victor and Princess Sophia.

Sophia was born on 8 August 1876 in Belgravia to Singh and his first wife, Bamba Müller, an Ethiopian-German woman brought up in Egypt. Alongside her older sisters Catherine and Bamba, she was raised at Suffolk’s Elveden Hall, which had been remodelled to resemble an Indian Mughal palace. Emblematic of the family's determination to reclaim their heritage, Princess Bamba also wrote about wearing dupattas (long scarves traditionally worn with a lehenga or salwar kameez) both in Norfolk and Lahore, showing a reluctance to fully assimilate and a wish to express her mixed heritage. 

Things at home, however, were far from rosy. A letter written by Bamba Müllerin Arabic and English, on display as part of the exhibition, speaks of an unhappy woman caught between two worlds. In 1886, when Sophia was 10, Singh left the family and Müller died a year later. Singh remarried the family’s chambermaid and, despite warnings from the British government, attempted to return to India. He was stopped and the whole family was put under surveillance to monitor their political activity. Duleep Singh died in 1893, aged 55, leaving behind a substantial fortune which fell into Sophia and her siblings’ hands. 

Sophia Duleep Singh and Queen Victoria

Now navigating adolescence without her mother, and with her family’s complex identity carved by colonial rule, Sophia found favour with Queen Victoria. The monarch encouraged Sophia and her sisters to become socialites, and, as a result, the girls quickly found themselves wearing the finest Parisian fashion, attending parties, breeding dogs and nurturing genteel hobbies. A portrait of Catherine, Sophia and Bamba, taken at their debutante ball in 1895, paints a picture of three aristocratic young women ready to launch into British society – but their lives tell a more complex story of resistance.

In 1898, Queen Victoria granted Sophia and her sisters a grace and favour apartment in Faraday House at Hampton Court Palace, along with a £200--year allowance for expenses – an unheard of act of generosity. However, Sophia’s yearning for her independence became all consuming and, when the queen died in 1901, Sophia went in search of her homeland. 

A rebel at heart

The Suffragette with an image of Sophia selling copies in 1913.

A ‘No Vote, No Tax’ banner from 1908. Princess Sophia played a leading role in the Women’s Tax Resistance League, and was summoned to court for refusing to pay her taxes three times.

Their Belgravia upbringing, and the level of political surveillance pushed on the family, left Sophia and her sisters with little knowledge of their native India. In 1903, together with her sister Bamba, Sophia travelled to India only to be snubbed at the Delhi Durbar — an opulent ceremony marking the succession of King Edward VII as Emperor of India. Late in 1907, she visited again to meet relatives, this time discovering just how much her family, people and country had lost in the aftermath of her father’s surrender. As a result, Sophia turned against the British Raj. 

Upon her return from India, she joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). She refused to pay taxes and instead funnelled money into the suffrage movement, both in the UK and in India. Taken to court three times for refusing to pay taxes, highlights of the exhibition include a ‘No Vote, No Tax’ banner used in early 1900s protest marches, and a handwritten letter from Princess Sophia to Winston Churchill reporting police brutality at the Black Friday suffragette march. 

Together with rarely exhibited items – including an original copy of The Suffragette containing an image of Sophia selling the magazine at Hampton Court Palace, which was considered evidence of her support of a ‘dangerous’ cause – these items offer visitors a vivid portrait of a princess turned political force. 

A lasting legacy

Despite her activism as a suffragette, Sophia was never arrested. As 1914 ushered in the First World War, Sophia became a British Red Cross Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse and tended soldiers on the Western Front. When women aged 30 and over were granted suffrage in the UK in 1918, she joined the Suffragette Fellowship and remained a member until her death in 1948. Sophia continued to visit her beloved India and aided the battle for suffrage there; in 1924 she visited Kashmir, Lahore, Amritsar, and Murree and was mobbed by crowds who came to see the former Maharaja's daughter, which simultaneously boosted the cause. 

Polly Putnam, curator of The Last Princesses of Punjab, says: “Kensington Palace was the childhood home of Queen Victoria, godmother to Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, and it is a privilege to tell this story in a space that has long represented the lives of royal women. The Last Princesses of Punjab will invite visitors to examine the lives of Sophia and the women who shaped her through the lens of resistance, heritage and identity.”

The Last Princesses of Punjab opens on 26 March 2026, visit hrp.org.uk

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