Sophia: Suffragette Princess   Introduction Princess Sophia Alexandra Duleep Singh was born on August 8, 1876 to Maharaja Duleep Singh, the last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire, and Maharani Bamba Müller, the daughter of a German father and Abyssinian mother who had grown up in Cairo and spoke only Arabic at first. Her parents had met when the Maharaja stopped in Cairo in 1863 on his way back to England from scattering his mother’s ashes in India. Duleep Singh saw Bamba teaching at a Christian missionary and struck by her looks, he had pursued her until she finally relented. The couple married in Alexandria, Egypt on June 7, 1864 and their union bore six children, of whom Princess Sophia Duleep Singh was the youngest. The Maharaja Duleep Singh’s life was not an easy or smooth one. In 1843, he ascended the throne of the Maharaja of Punjab at the tender age of five. For some time, his mother ruled as the Regent before she was deposed and imprisoned, and her son was separated from her. He was just nine years old and they would not meet again for 13.5 years. Then in 1849, following the annexation of Punjab by […]