Kensington Palace Marks 150th Birthday of Punjabi Princess and Suffragette Sophia Duleep Singh

Tuesday, 4 November 2025 11:39

Princesses Sophia and Catherine Duleep Singh - © Peter Bance Collection

A major new exhibition, The Last Princesses of Punjab, will open at Kensington Palace on 26 March 2026 to celebrate the 150th birthday of Princess Sophia Duleep Singh — the trailblazing Punjabi royal and suffragette — exploring the lives of the remarkable women who shaped her story.

Kensington Palace is set to open a landmark new exhibition in March 2026 celebrating the life and legacy of Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, the goddaughter of Queen Victoria and one of the leading figures in Britain’s suffragette movement.

Titled The Last Princesses of Punjab: The Story of Sophia Duleep Singh and the Women Who Shaped Her, the exhibition opens on 26 March 2026, marking what would have been the princess’s 150th birthday. It explores the intertwined stories of six royal women — Sophia, her sisters Catherine and Bamba, her mother Bamba Muller, her grandmother Jind Kaur, and her godmother Queen Victoria — each of whom embodied power, womanhood, and identity in different ways.

Princess Sophia Duleep Singh is best remembered for her tireless campaign for women’s right to vote, using her royal status to advance the cause. Visitors to the exhibition will see powerful artefacts from her activism, including an original copy of The Suffragette showing Sophia selling the newspaper outside Hampton Court Palace — a striking image that caused a national scandal in 1913. Her defiant 1911 census form, annotated with “No Vote, No Census,” will also be on display, alongside a photograph of Sophia and her sister Catherine attending a Suffrage dinner in 1930.

The exhibition offers a deeply personal look at royal lives shaped by Empire and displacement, tracing how these women transformed hardship into influence. Among the artefacts are treasures from the Sikh Empire, including an emerald and seed pearl necklace confiscated from Maharani Jind Kaur by the East India Company in 1848, and a makara-head enamelled gold bangle once gifted to Sophia’s mother Bamba Muller — symbolic of protection and family heritage.

Bamba Muller, born in Cairo to a German banker and an enslaved Ethiopian woman, married Maharaja Duleep Singh and later struggled with life in England. A rare letter she wrote in both Arabic and English, revealing her sense of isolation, will be featured in the exhibition.

Sophia’s sisters also led extraordinary lives. Princess Catherine Duleep Singh, now recognised as an icon for LGBTQ+ South Asian women, lived with her beloved companion Lina Schaeffer in Germany, later dedicating herself to helping Jewish refugees escape the Nazis. Letters between Catherine and Sophia will offer a glimpse of her courage and compassion.

Meanwhile, Princess Bamba Sutherland, who returned to Lahore in the 1940s, considered herself the rightful heir to her grandfather Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s empire. Her sarees, worn in both Lahore and Norfolk, and letters claiming her family’s lost lands will appear in the display, representing her deep pride in her Punjabi heritage.

The exhibition will also connect the princesses’ legacies to modern voices. Historic Royal Palaces has collaborated with British South Asian community groups to create contemporary artistic responses — including a short film by a mother and daughter exploring how empire continues to shape generations of women.

Polly Putnam, Curator of The Last Princesses of Punjab, said:

“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 exhibition invites visitors to explore themes of resistance, heritage, and identity through the lives of these extraordinary women.”

Mishka Sinha, Exhibition Historian, added:

“We are thrilled to be celebrating the 150th birthday of Princess Sophia Duleep Singh. This exhibition centres powerful women in a chapter of shared history, and we hope visitors will be surprised, moved, and inspired by what they find.”

The Last Princesses of Punjab opens to the public on 26 March 2026 and is included in standard Kensington Palace admission.

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