The Secret Life of the Punjabi Princess

Did you know that Queen Victoria had a goddaughter who was not only a prominent figure in the suffragette movement but also openly a lesbian? Princess Catherine Hilda Duleep Singh was rather overshadowed by her sister Sophia's involvement and support of the Suffragist Pankhurst. Catherine's philanthropy, her aid to Jews, her support of the suffragists, and her personal life as a lesbian have recently surfaced to light.

Portrait of Princess Catherine Hilda Duleep Singh; Source: BBC

The last Sikh ruler of Punjab, Maharaja Duleep Singh, was exiled to England at a mere fifteen years of age. The East India Company took over his kingdom and possessions and sent him to England to be assimilated into the society. There he won the favor of Queen Victoria, after losing his Koh-i-Noor to her. Later, the queen agreed to become the godmother of Singh’s children.

As Maharaja Duleep Singh was struggling to get back to India to fight for his nation’s independence, but miserably failing in the endeavour, his second daughter Catherine Hilda Duleep Singh was put under the care of Mr. and Mrs. Oliphant by the queen. Initially, the Oliphant family served Maharaja Duleep Singh. Under this family's care, the princess was provided with lessons in violin, singing, and swimming. And in their care, she met Lina Schafer as her governess.

At the age of nineteen, Catherine attended Somerville College, Oxford, where she studied French and German. Although she studied for a degree, she was not given the qualification as Oxford University did not award degrees to women at that time.

Catherine visited India only once in her lifetime. She spent over ten months in India where she toured places like Kashmir, Dalhousie, Shimla, Amritsar, Kapurthala, and Patiala. Here, she was fortunate to have in her audience both the royalty and the common folks. Her aim for a visit was more concerned with making an acquaintance with her ancestral home in Lahore. In her notes, she talks about her visit during Diwali, and recalls the festivities in the golden temple in Amritsar, visiting her grandfather’s home and meeting people who fought with him, and a few other places she could visit.

Back in London, Catherine was an active member of the women's rights movement and joined the Fawcett Women's Suffrage Group and the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). They were commonly known as the Suffragists. But by the time British women, over the age of 21, were granted the right to vote, Princess Catherine was living in Castle Germany with her partner Lina Schafer.

Catherine and Lina moved to Germany, where for many years, they lived a peaceful life; Source: Metro

Lina, her former governess, and now partner lived away from the aristocratic society of London. Catherine’s relationship with Lina could be one of the reasons why she avoided the limelight and preferred seclusion better. After all, Victorian society was not the biggest ally of homosexual bonds. And this is the reason her philanthropy was discovered quite recently, by Maharaja Duleep Singh’s biographer, Peter Bance.

Although there is no explicit reference to a sexual relationship between the two women, Catherine’s sister Sophia described their relationship as intimate. The couple lived in Germany throughout the first world war despite difficulties with the rise of the Nazi party. Catherine remained in Germany until Lina's death on August 26, 1938. Soon after her partner’s death, Catherine found it difficult to stay in Germany. She grew weary of the Nazi regime’s threats as well. Deciding to leave the place, she sold all her belongings and returned to England.

Before leaving Germany she helped several Jewish families escape the Holocaust, but because the princess was rather secretive, details of her work are still relatively unknown. Bance, Maharaja’s biographer, conducted interviews with the children of families who Princess helped flee the clutches of Nazi Germany. It was found out that Catherine was referred to as the Indian Schindler. It is a reference to a German industrialist Oscar Schindler, who saved over 1200 Jews by employing them in his factories in occupied Poland.

Princess Catherine Hilda Duleep Singh died of heart failure on 8 November 1942, at the age of 71. In her will, she asked for her ashes to be buried as near as possible to her partner, Lina’s grave in Germany. Catherine’s sister renamed her house “Hilda Hall” in her honor.