No occupation

34

Unmarried

Faraday House, Hampton Court Road, East Molesey, KT8 9BW

WSPU

Resists

Sophia Duleep Singh, daughter of Maharajah Duleep Singh, was a god-daughter to Queen Victoria; her mother was German. Sophia was born a princess, but her father’s abandonment of his family meant that she was no stranger to suffering as a child. Her father left his family destitute and Sophia’s mother died soon after from alcoholism and depression. Sophia was a committed member of the WSPU, taking part in one of the deputations to Parliament on ‘Black Friday’ (18 November 1910) that resulted in violent scenes in Parliament Square. At another time, she threw herself onto the Prime Minister’s car pressing a ‘Votes for Women’ pamphlet against the windshield. She was arrested during the suffrage campaign, but was never sent to prison perhaps because of her high social status. She was a regular speaker at meetings of the Richmond branch of the WSPU and, as a member of the Women’s Tax Resistance League too, on several occasions had goods seized after she had refused to pay taxes (see images). In 1911, Sophia took part in the suffragette boycott of the government census survey writing 'No Vote No Census' across her census return. She also took to selling the Suffragette newspaper outside Hampton Court Palace where she lived, standing next to an advertising board (see image). This prompted calls for her removal from her ‘grace and favour’ home at the palace to try and stop such antics (see images, letter to Lord Crewe attached). For more information see, Elizabeth Crawford: The Women’s Suffrage Movement: A reference guide, 1866-1928 (London: Routledge, 2001) and Anita Anand, Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary.