page_title: Sophia Duleep Singh
section_title: Later life and activism
hierarchical_section_title: Sophia Duleep Singh / Later life and activism
caption_attribution_description: English: Three sister Princesses, Bamba, Catherine and Sophia - daughters of Daleep Singh
context_page_description: Princess Sophia Alexandrovna Duleep Singh was a prominent suffragette in the United Kingdom. Her father was Maharaja Duleep Singh, who had been taken from his kingdom of Punjab to the British Raj, and was subsequently exiled to England. Sophia's mother was Bamba Müller, and her godmother was Queen Victoria. She had four sisters, including two halfsisters, and four brothers. She lived in Hampton Court in an apartment in Faraday House given to her by Queen Victoria as a grace and favour.
  During the early twentieth century, Singh was one of several Indian women who pioneered the cause of women's rights in Britain. Although she is best remembered for her leading role in the Women's Tax Resistance League, she also participated in other women's suffrage groups, including the Women's Social and Political Union.
context_section_description: After Singh returned from India in 1909, she joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) at the behest of Una Dugdale, a friend of the Pankhurst sisters; Emmeline Pankhurst had co-founded the Women's Franchise League in 1889. In 1909 Singh was a leading member of the movement for women's voting rights, funding suffragette groups and leading the cause. She refused to pay taxes, frustrating the government; King George V asked in exasperation, "Have we no hold on her?"
  Although as a British subject Singh's primary interest was women's rights in England, she and her fellow suffragettes also promoted similar activities in the colonies. She valued her Indian heritage, but was not bound by allegiance to a single nation and supported the women's cause in a number of countries. Her title, Princess, was useful. Singh sold a suffragette newspaper outside Hampton Court Palace, where Queen Victoria had allowed her family to live. According to a letter from Lord Crewe, King George V was within his rights to have her evicted.
  Singh, Emmeline Pankhurst and a group of activists went to the House of Commons on 18 November 1910, hoping for a meeting with the Prime Minister. The Home Secretary ordered their expulsion, and many of the women were seriously injured. The incident became known as Black Friday.
  At first, Singh kept a low profile; in 1911 she was reluctant to make speeches in public or at Women's Social and Political Union meetings. She refused to chair meetings, telling her WSPU colleagues she was "quite useless for that sort of thing" and would only say "five words if nobody else would support the forthcoming resolution". However, Singh later chaired and addressed a number of meetings. Mithan Tata and her mother Herabai met Singh in India, in 1911, and noted that Singh wore a small yellow-and-green badge with her motto: "Votes for women".
  Singh authorised an auction of her belongings, with proceeds benefiting the Women's Tax Resistance League. She solicited subscriptions to the cause, and was photographed selling The Suffragette newspaper outside her home and from press carts. On 22 May 1911 Singh was fined £3 by the Spelthorne Petty Sessions Court for illegally keeping a coach, a helper, and five dogs and for using a roll of arms. She protested that she should not have to pay the licence fees without the right to vote. That July a bailiff went to Singh's house to collect an unpaid fine of 14 shillings, which she refused to pay. Her diamond ring was then confiscated by the police and auctioned a few days later; a friend bought it and returned it to her. In December 1913, Singh was fined £12/10s for refusing to pay licence fees for two dogs, a carriage and a servant. On 13 December 1913 she and other WTRL members appeared in court and Singh was again accused of keeping dogs without a licence. Singh tried to fall in front of Prime Minister H. H. Asquith's car while holding a poster reading, "Give women the vote!" She supported the manufacture of bombs, encouraging anarchy in Britain. Despite Singh's activism as a suffragette, she was never arrested; although her activities were watched by the administration, they may not have wanted to make a martyr of her.
  During World War I, Singh initially supported the Indian soldiers and Lascars working in the British fleets and joined a 10,000-woman protest march against the prohibition of a volunteer female force. She volunteered as a British Red Cross Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse, serving at an auxiliary military hospital in Isleworth from October 1915 to January 1917. She tended wounded Indian soldiers who had been evacuated from the Western Front. Sikh soldiers could hardly believe "that the granddaughter of Ranjit Singh sat by their bedsides in a nurse's uniform".
  After the 1918 enactment of the Representation of the People Act, allowing women over age 30 to vote, Singh joined the Suffragette Fellowship and remained a member until her death. Her arrangement of a flag day that year for Indian troops generated shock waves in England and New Delhi. In September 1919 Singh hosted
caption: Sophia Duleep Singh (on the right), with her sisters Bamba and Catherine
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