Maharaja Sir Duleep Singh (6 September 1838 – 22 October 1893), also spelled Dalip Singh,His name has several alternative spellings. Among them are Dhulip, Dulip, Dhalip, Dhuleep and Dalip, but he used Duleep when writing it himself, although Dalip is the conventional spelling for the Punjabi name. Official British letters and documents sometimes refer to him as Dalip the Ultimate. and later in life nicknamed the "Black Prince of Perthshire",Dalip Singh – website Britannica.com was the last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire. He was Maharaja Ranjit Singh's youngest son, the only child of Maharani Jind Kaur.
He was placed in power in September 1843, at the age of five, with his mother ruling on his behalf, and after their defeat in the Anglo-Sikh War, under a British Resident. He was subsequently deposed by the British East India Company and thereafter exiled to Britain at age 15 where he was befriended by Queen Victoria, who is reported to have written of the Punjabi Maharaja: "Those eyes and those teeth are too beautiful".Eton, the Raj and modern India; By Alastair Lawson; 9 March 2005; BBC News. The Queen was godmother to several of his children. He died at 55 in Paris, otherwise living most of his final years in the United Kingdom.
His mother had effectively ruled when he was very young and he managed to meet her again on 16 January 1861, in Calcutta and return with her to the United Kingdom.E Dalhousie Login, Lady Login's Recollections, Chapter 14, Smith Elder, 1916 During the last two years of her life, his mother told the Maharaja about his Sikh heritage and the Empire which once had been his to rule. In June 1861, he was one of the first 25 Knights in the Order of the Star of India.
Early years
After the death of Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1839, Duleep Singh lived quietly with his mother, Jind Kaur Aulakh, in Lahore accompanied by Vizir Dhian Singh. He and his mother were recalled to Lahore in 1843 after the assassinations of Maharaja Sher Singh and Dhian Singh, and on 16 September, at the age of five, Duleep Singh was proclaimed Maharaja of the Sikh Empire by the Panch (Military Council), with Maharani Jind Kaur as Regent. He was betrothed to Tej Kaur, the granddaughter of Sham Singh Attariwala. However, this betrothal would not be honored once he came under British guardianship.
Due to divisions and factionalism (including covert British activities), Jind Kaur was advised to weaken the strength and influence of the Sikh Army by pre-occupying it with a war with the East India Company, leading to the First Anglo-Sikh War. On 13 December 1845 the British East India Company declared war on the Sikhs and, after winning the First Anglo-Sikh War, retained the Maharaja as nominal ruler, but replaced the Maharani with a Council of Regency and later imprisoned and exiled her. Over thirteen years passed before Duleep Singh was permitted to see his mother again.
After the end of the Second Anglo-Sikh War and the subsequent annexation of the Punjab on 29 March 1849,The tragic life of Maharaja Dalip Singh By Reeta Sharma, The Tribune, 20 February 1999 he was deposed at the age of ten.Duleep Singh www.collectbritain.co.uk. Duleep Singh was instructed that he was allowed to live anywhere but Punjab and was given a 120,000 rupee (£50,000) pension per annum. His property worth 15 million rupees was dispossessed of him by the British, including the famed Koh-i-Noor diamond. He was put into the care of Dr John Login and sent from Lahore to Fatehgarh on 21 December 1849, with tight restrictions on who he was allowed to meet. No Indians, except trusted servants, could meet him in private. As a matter of Company policy, he was to be culturally Anglicised in every possible aspect. His health was reportedly poor and he was often sent to the hill station of Landour near Mussoorie in the Lower Himalayas for convalescence, at the time about four days' journey. He would remain for weeks at a time in Landour at a grand hilltop building called The Castle, which had been lavishly furnished to accommodate him.
Duleep Singh eventually moved to Britain. Khushwant Singh narrated the reasons that motivated him to do so:
After Duleep expressed a desire to become an English country-gentleman and move to England, Dalhousie was initially skeptical of the idea but decided to send Shahdeo Singh to accompany Duleep Singh to England. This was because Shahdeo Singh was also a potential claimant to the former Sikh throne and Dalhousie thought it would benefit the British mission to send him off to England alongside his now Christian relative Duleep. In May 1854, Duleep was sent into exile in Britain.
Conversion to Christianity
He was also heavily and continuously exposed to Christian texts under the tutelage of the devout Sir John Spencer Login. His two closest childhood friends were both English Anglican missionaries. After two months under Dr. Login's tutelage at Fatehgarh, on 8 March 1853, also under the two Brahmin retainers Purohit Golab Rai and Bhagun Lal (himself a Christian convert), Duleep converted to Christianity at Fatehgarh Sahib with the approval of the Governor-General Lord Dalhousie. His conversion remains controversial, and it occurred before he turned 15. He later had serious doubts and regrets regarding this decision and reconverted to Sikhism in 1886. Dalhousie celebrated his conversion to Christianity as it would destroy any remaining influence Duleep had in the Punjab, with the Sikhs no longer acknowleding Duleep as their maharaja as a result. After two years of probation, Duleep's hair was cut and he was baptized into the Christian faith. Dalhousie gifted Duleep Singh a copy of the Bible as a parting gift.
Life in exile
London
Duleep Singh arrived in England in late 1854 and was introduced to the British court. Queen Victoria showered affection upon the turbaned Maharaja, as did the Prince Consort. Duleep Singh was initially lodged at Claridge's Hotel in London before the East India Company took over a house in Wimbledon and then eventually another house in Roehampton which became his home for three years. He was also invited by the Queen to stay with the Royal Family at Osborne, where she sketched him playing with her children and Prince Albert photographed him, while the court artist, Winterhalter, made his portrait.Maharaja Dalip Singh in London Victoria & Albert Museum. Duleep Singh was treated as a godson by Queen Victoria, often visiting Buckingham Palace.
He eventually got bored with Roehampton and expressed a wish to go back to India but it was suggested by the East India Company Board he take a tour of the European continent, which he did with Sir John Spencer Login and Lady Login. He was a member of the Photographic Society, later the Royal Photographic Society, from 1855 until his death.Royal Photographic Society. Members: 1853–1901 Accessed 6 July 2014
Castle Menzies
On his return from Continental Europe in 1855 he was given an annual pension of £25,000 a year (approximately £ in today's value) provided he "remain obedient to the British Government," and was officially under ward of Sir John Spencer Login and Lady Login, who leased Castle Menzies in Perthshire, Scotland, for him. He spent the rest of his teens there, but at 19 he demanded to be in charge of his household. Eventually, he was given this and an increase in his annual pension.
In 1859 Lt Col James Oliphant was installed as Equerry to the Maharaja at the recommendation of Sir John Login. Oliphant was to be a possible replacement should anything happen to the Maharaja's most trusted friend Sir John Login (who did indeed die four years later in 1863).
In the 1860s, Singh moved from Castle Menzies to Grandtully Castle. Eventually Duleep Singh was given a £40,000 per year pension and an estate in the county of Suffolk.
Mulgrave Castle
From 1858 to 1862 Duleep Singh rented Mulgrave Castle, near Whitby.
Sir Samuel White Baker
While Sir Samuel White Baker was visiting the Duke of Atholl on his shooting estate in Scotland, he befriended Maharaja Duleep Singh. In 1858–1859, the two partnered an extensive hunting trip in central Europe and the Balkans, via Frankfurt, Berlin, Vienna and Budapest. On the last part of the voyage, Baker and the Maharajah hired a wooden boat in Budapest, which was eventually abandoned on the frozen Danube. The two continued into Vidin where, to amuse the Maharajah, Baker went to the Vidin slave market. There, Baker fell in love with a white slave girl, destined for the Ottoman Pasha of Vidin. Baker was outbid by the Pasha but bribed the girl's attendants. The two ran away in a carriage together and eventually, as Florence Baker, she became Baker's lover and later wife and accompanied him everywhere he journeyed.
Reunion with his mother In 1861, Duleep Singh was allowed to return to India on a short trip, returning with his mother. When he was 18, Singh wrote to his mother in Kathmandu, suggesting that she should join him in Great Britain, but his letter was intercepted by the British authorities in India and did not reach her. He then sent a courier, Pundit Nehemiah Goreh, who was also intercepted and forbidden to contact the Maharani. Duleep Singh then decided to go himself. Under cover of a letter from Login he wrote to the British Resident in Kathmandu, who reported that the Maharani had 'much changed, was blind and had lost much of the energy which formerly characterised her.' The British government decided she was no longer a threat and she was allowed to join her son on 16 January 1861 at Spence's Hotel in Calcutta and return with him to England. In 1863, he returned to India with the ashes of his mother after her death. Enroute to India he met Bamba Müller, the daughter of a German trader and an Abyssinian woman. Duleep Singh later married Bamba in Alexandria, with the couple living together in Suffolk and having children.
Auchlyne and Aberfeldy In 1858 the lease of Castle Menzies expired and Duleep Singh rented the house at Auchlyne from the Earl of Breadalbane. He was known for a lavish lifestyle, shooting parties, and a love of dressing in Highland costume and soon had the nickname "the Black Prince of Perthshire".On the trail of the Sikh heritage BBC News, 30 September 2008. (At the same time, he was known to have gradually developed a sense of regret for his circumstances in exile, including some inner turmoil about his conversion to Christianity and his forced departure from the Punjab). His mother stayed in Perthshire with him for a short time, before he rented the Grandtully Estate, near Aberfeldy. Following the death of his mother and Sir John Login in 1863, he returned to England.
Elveden Estate
Maharaja Duleep Singh (as he became in June 1861) bought (or the India Office purchased for him) a country estate at Elveden on the border between Norfolk and Suffolk, close to Thetford, in 1863. He enjoyed living in Elveden Hall and the surrounding area and restored the church, cottages, and school. He transformed the run-down estate into an efficient game preserve and it was here that he gained his reputation as the fourth best shot in England.Michael Alexander and Sushila Anand. Queen Victoria's Maharaja: Duleep Singh 1838–93 ,
The house was remodelled into a quasi-oriental palace where he lived the life of a British aristocrat. Maharaja Duleep Singh was accused of running up large expenses and the estate was sold after his death to pay his debts. Today, Elveden is owned by Edward Guinness, 4th Earl of Iveagh, the head of the Anglo-Irish Guinness family of brewing fame; it remains an operating farm and private hunting estate.
Effort to restore his throne