[BITList] Princess Catherine Duleep Singh

[John Feltham]

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Duleep Singh, Princess Catherine Hilda  (1871-1942), suffragette, was born on 27 October 1871 at 17 Princes Gardens, Knightsbridge, London, the fourth of six children who survived infancy of Maharaja Duleep Singh  (1838-1893), and his first wife, Bamba, nee Muller (1848-1887), of mixed German and Abyssinian descent. Her father had been deposed as the ruler of the Punjab in 1849 and taken to England in 1854. He married Catherine's mother, daughter of a German banker, on a visit to Cairo in 1864 when he was travelling back from India after cremating his mother's body at Bombay.

Catherine Duleep Singh grew up with her siblings-who included Prince Frederick Victor Duleep Singh  (1868-1926) and Princess Sophia Alexandra Duleep Singh  (1876-1948)-on the Elveden Hall estate in Suffolk, where much of her private schooling was conducted. In 1886 her father left the family to gather support in Europe for a proposed invasion of the Punjab. Her mother died in 1887, and Catherine and her two sisters and youngest brother were placed in the care of Arthur Oliphant. In 1889 she, together with her siblings, moved to the Oliphants' Brighton House, 5 Sussex Square. It was there that she first met Fraulein Lina Schafer, her new German governess from Kassel. In September 1890 Catherine and her elder sister Bamba (1869-1957) went to study at Somerville Hall, Oxford, under its principal, Agnes Maitland. A contemporary was Cornelia Sorabji, who went on to become the first female barrister from India. The following year Schafer took Catherine to Germany, visiting the Black Forest and Dresden; the pair had by now formed an intimate bond.

Catherine Duleep Singh and her sisters visited India many times, including trips to the Punjab to see where the family's rule had extended. Her brothers were not allowed this concession as it was thought too much of a security risk for the empire. In England, Catherine was a member of the newly formed Empress Club, the female equivalent to the Carlton Club. She was an active suffragette, as was her sister Sophia. She attended fairs and rallies for the cause, and on 29 November 1912 opened what was described as a 'forest of Christmas trees' at the Mechanics' Large Hall, Birmingham, in aid of the 'Constitutional women's suffrage work'  (The Times, 29 Nov 1912). Her support for the suffragette movement was lifelong, and she attended the annual dinners and gatherings of the movement even after women had won the right to vote.

In 1908 Schafer acquired a mansion, in the Mulang district of Kassel, which she shared with Catherine after the First World War. Schafer became the princess's lifelong confidante and they enjoyed a very strong relationship, which was not approved of by the Schafer family. Catherine spent most of the inter-war years in Germany. Her situation became increasingly difficult with the rise of Nazism: 'The local Nazis disapproved of the old Indian lady', it was later reported  (private information). Schafer died in 1937 at the age of seventy-eight. Following her death, Catherine felt that Kassel had nothing to offer her, and she was warned by her neighbour and accountant, Fritz Ratig, to leave the country. In November 1938 she sold everything and fled, returning to England via Switzerland.

On her return to England, Princess Catherine lived at Coalhatch House in Penn, Buckinghamshire. There she housed a succession of German-Jewish refugees, starting with Wilhelm Meyerstein and his partner, Maria, from Potsdam, in 1938. Meyerstein was a heart surgeon who had been Catherine's medical adviser in Germany. The Meyersteins were followed by another doctor, Wilhelm Hornstein, and the following year by his wife, Ilse, and their two children, George and Ursula. Catherine had already, in Germany, acted as Hornstein's guarantor in order to release him from custody following the Kristallnacht. Another Jewish refugee, Alexander Polnarioff, a violinist, arrived during the war. The arrival of these Germans in the village caused some unrest.

Catherine Duleep Singh died on 8 November 1942 at Coalhatch House, Penn, of heart failure. It was her wish to be cremated. On 12 November her cortege was borne to Tyler's Green church for a service and then to Golders Green crematorium. The chief mourner and only family member present was Sophia, as Bamba was stranded in India because of the war. After her death her sisters renamed Coalhatch House as Hilden Hall, after Catherine's middle name, Hilda. In 1997 she was among those named on a list of persons holding dormant Swiss bank accounts from the Second World War, which was released and widely publicized, prompting speculation about the contents of her deposit box. Her account, which contained only French francs, was later awarded to the descendants of her sister Bamba's former head servant in Lahore (who had been the chief beneficiary of Bamba's will).

Bhupinder Singh Bance 

Sources  The Times (29 Nov 1912); (10 Nov 1942) + Hessische Allegemeine (July 1997) + C. Campbell, The maharajah's box: an imperial story of conspiracy, love and a guru's prophecy (2000) + P. Bance, Sovereign, squire and rebel: Maharajah Duleep Singh and the heirs of a lost kingdom (2009) + Amritsar, Sandhawalia family papers + BL OIOC, f. L/P and S/10/768 + private information (2013) [F. Forssman, S. Phimster, P. J. Bowles, B. Hore] + b. cert. + d. cert.
Wealth at death  £17,162 14s. 11d.: probate, 17 May 1943, CGPLA Eng. & Wales



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