Catherine Duleep Singh

Catherine Duleep Singh’s royal family tree

Princess Catherine Hilda Duleep Singh was born on 27 October 1871, the daughter of Maharajah Duleep Singh and Bamba Müller. Through her father, Princess Catherine was the granddaughter of Ranjit Singh and Jind Kaur, the Maharajah and Maharani of the Punjab in the north-west of the Indian Subcontinent. 

Duleep Singh became Maharajah aged just five in 1843, after the assassination of three of his father’s successors. Catherine’s grandmother Jind Kaur was made Regent, but she was imprisoned and exiled by the British after the Anglo Sikh Wars. 

Duleep Singh was brought up by the Scottish Surgeon, Sir John Login. He was given a residence in Fatehgarh, in the north-west of the Punjab, but soon expressed a wish to visit England. He remained in England after the events of the 1857 Indian Rebellion, not least because his residence in Fatehgarh had been destroyed.

In England, Duleep Singh met Queen Victoria who recognised him as a fellow royal. The Queen formed a genuine, if fundamentally unequal, relationship with the Maharajah and his family, and remained involved in their lives throughout her reign. 

Early life

Catherine spent much of her early childhood among the splendour of Elveden Hall in Suffolk, which her father purchased in 1863. 

Maharajah Duleep Singh lived on a pension of £25,000 a year from the India office, which he was granted provided he 'remain obedient to the British Government’. Although this was huge sum of money, it was a fraction of what he was owed under the original treaties at the end of the Anglo Sikh Wars. He poured much of his income into the purchase, expansion and running costs of Elveden Hall.

The house combined the grandeur of an English country manor but was ornately decorated without in Indian splendour. The estate was home to great many exotic birds and animals. A large staff was also kept there including two Sikh valets, Hookum Singh and Aroor Singh.

Their lives at Elveden were designed to prepare Catherine and her siblings for an aristocratic life. They had riding lessons and were taught to speak German, which their mother Bamba spoke fluently. Christianity was an important aspect to their upbringing; Bamba was incredibly devout. 

But the children’s life in Elveden was not to last.

The idyll ends

By 1886, the Maharajah’s debts had risen and the India Office forced him to sell Elveden Hall. In desperation, he sought to return to India to claim what he was owed. He took his family, but only got as far as Aden (a city in Yemen) before he was arrested.

Determined, Sophia’s father eventually put his wife and children on a ship back to England. He left his family behind to continue his campaign in France, where he lived with his second wife. 

Maharani Bama and the children were effectively homeless and penniless. The Maharani could not cope with her husband’s abandonment, overcome with despair and grief. The India Office intervened at the request of the palace, finding them a home in London. 

The next few years would test Catherine’s resolve, and change her life. Her mother, Maharani Bamba died on 18 September 1887, after collapsing and slipping into a coma next to the sick bed of Sophia, who had contracted typhoid fever. 

A few years later, in 1893, Catherine’s little brother Albert Edward died after contracting pneumonia. Her father returned home only to see his dying son for a few days, before dying in Paris later the same year.

Catherine and her sister Bamba were placed in Somerville College, Oxford University. During this period, she met Lina Schaeffer, who had been employed as her governess. Lina would become one of the most important people of Catherine’s life.

Princess and student

Catherine Duleep Singh at Oxford University

Catherine and Bamba attended Somerville College at Oxford University between 1890 and 1894. It is possible that Somerville was chosen because Principal Ages Maitland, was a Presbyterian, and had links to Egypt. 

At Somerville, Catherine studied French, German, and English literature. We don’t know much about her time there, however we know that their guardians desired them to have painting and singing lessons. 

Women were allowed to study at university during this period, but they could not graduate. So although Catherine passed at Oxford, as a woman she was denied the chance to gain a degree.

It is probably during this time that Catherine fell in love with Lina Schaeffer, her governess. The Princesses had stayed with Lina at her home in Kassel, Germany before going to Oxford. Lina had her own house there and the trustees insisted that Lina ‘accompany them to lectures and be chaperone to them when they go out’.

In love with Lina

Catherine Duleep Singh’s relationship with Lina Schaeffer

Although lesbian relationships were never criminalised in the UK, society was hostile towards them during this period. This means we have few clear records of Catherine and Lina’s relationship.

Nevertheless, their bond is evident in Catherine’s correspondence with her sisters. 

Often Catherine mentions that her possessions are bundled up with Lina’s, implying a shared life together. Princess Sophia even described the relationship as ‘intimate’ in a letter to the India Office, written to seek assurances for Catherine’s safety during the First World War.

Grace and favour

Catherine’s life in England

In 1896, Catherine and Sophia were granted Faraday House at Hampton Court Palace as a grace and favour residence, together with an allowance of £200 per year for its upkeep. 

Catherine was less keen on Faraday House, not least because Princess Sophia overran the place with her many dogs and animals.

Catherine appears to have been the more practical of the sisters, writing most of the correspondence with the Ministry of Works about the upkeep of the house. 

In around 1907, Catherine purchased Coalhatch House in Buckinghamshire (later named Hilden Hall). It had large grounds, and Catherine kept two large tortoises there. Princess Sophia purchased a cottage across the road, called Rathenrea, where she could keep her dogs. 

Still deeply fond of each other, the two sisters spent most evenings together when Catherine was in England. 

Catherine’s life in Germany

In 1908, Lina purchased a house in Kassel. Catherine began to spend most of her time there. In 1925, Lina granted equal ownership of the house to Catherine.

Princess Catherine’s life in Kassel was far removed from the glamour of high society in London. She lived quietly, spending a lot of time in the garden. Catherine and Lina ate lunch every day in the same restaurant. Their neighbour recalleds, ‘the old Princess would always walk on Fraulein Scaheffer’s left, out of respect for her’.

Catherine Duleep Singh, the suffragist

Princess Catherine Duleep Singh was a committed supporter of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), which was founded in 1897 and led by Millicent Fawcett. Unlike the ‘suffragettes’ of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), the NUWSS campaigned through legal means. 

Catherine donated money and used her status to support the cause. In 1912, she opened the East Midlands NUWSS fete. She was also on the committee for the Women’s Kingdom Exhibition of 1914, which aimed to showcase women’s achievements in direct contrast to the destructive activities of the WSPU.

Lina's death

On 26 August 1938, Lina died. Catherine specified in her will that her ashes should be spread on her lover’s grave. 

Soon after Lina’s death, Catherine left the home they had shared for so many years and returned to Britain. Staying in Germany was no longer safe. 

‘I will be your guarantor’

Princess Catherine and Jewish refugees

After Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in 1933, Jewish people were increasingly excluded from many areas of daily life and faced state-sanctioned persecution and violence. 

Many Jews sought sanctuary in Britain. However, prior to arrival, they needed a sponsor to prove they had places to live and work. Before she left Germany in 1938, Catherine acted as guarantor for Wilhelm Meyerstein, Marieluise Wulff and the Hornstein family, allowing them to escape persecution from Nazi Germany. She also took in the Reich and Gutmann families. 

Catherine housed Jewish refugees at Coalhatch, her house in Buckinghamshire, and many came to stay at Faraday House. These included Alexander Poliarnoff, who was a violinist, and the Chopin family who stayed at Faraday House for four months. 

At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the British Government detained anyone they deemed an enemy alien, mainly Germans, Austrians and Italians. These included Jewish refugees who were detained in camps on the Isle of Wight. The Hornstein Family escaped internment because Willie Hornstein enlisted in the British Army. The Meyersteins also avoided internment because of their status within the medical and research community. However, the Guthmanns and the Reichs were sent to the Isle of Wight. 

The end

Princess Catherine died on 8 November 1942, aged 71 at Hilden Hall. As per her wishes, her coffin was laid out in her library. 

There was a service in the village before heading on to Golder’s Green Cemetery. The violinist, Polnarioff played the violin. Only Princess Sophia attended as Bamba was stranded in Lahore, unable to come because of the war. 

In 1949, Princess Bamba travelled to Kassel to fulfil Catherine’s final wish: that a portion of her ashes be buried ‘as near as possible to my friend Fraulein Schaeffer’. Bamba buried a portion of Catherine’s ashes alongside her sister’s great love.