Catherine Hilda Duleep Singh

Singh was born on 27 October 1871 at Elveden Hall, Suffolk, in England. She was the second daughter of Maharaja Duleep Singh and Bamba Müller. She had an elder sister Bamba Sofia Jindan (1869–1957), a younger sister Sophia Alexandra (1876–1948), three brothers – Victor Albert Jay (1866–1918), Frederick Victor (1868–1926), and Albert Edward Alexander (1879–1942), and two half-sisters – Pauline Alexandra (1887–1941) and Ada Irene Beryl (1889–1926) by Duleep Singh's second marriage, to Ada Douglas Wetherill. Sophia was the best known of the sisters as she was an active suffragette.

In 1886 her father attempted to move to India with his daughters but was prevented from entering India and forced to return from Aden. Catherine and her sisters then stayed at Folkestone, at 21 Clifton Street. Initially, Queen Victoria had desired to put them under the care of Lady Login but on the advice of the India Office in London their care was entrusted to Arthur Oliphant and his wife; Oliphant's father had worked as an equerry.[1] It was during this period that the princess was introduced to Fräulein Lina Schäfer, a German teacher and governess from Kassel who was twelve years her senior. The Princess then developed a deep and intimate bond with Schäfer that lasted until the latter's death.[1]

Singh and her older sister Bamba were educated at Somerville College, Oxford.[2][3] During this period she received private instruction in violin and singing. She was also given swimming lessons.[1] She was considered the prettiest among the three sisters; she and her sisters were debutantes at Buckingham Palace in 1895, dressed gracefully in fashionable white silk.[4] Like her sister Sophia, Catherine Hilda Duleep Singh also became a suffragist. She was a member of the Fawcett Women's Suffrage Group and the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), also known as the Suffragists.[5]

Catherine in centre with Bamba on the left and Sophia on the right

In 1903, she toured India, went to her ancestral home in Lahore and other places such as Kashmir, Dalhousie, Simla, and Amritsar. She also visited the princely states of Kapurthala, Nabha, Jind, and Patiala and interacted with both the royalty and the local people. After her return from India in March 1904 she lived in Europe with her former governess Lina Schäfer in the Black Forest, in Kassel and in Dresden and also visited her family in Switzerland.[1]

Singh spent most of her adult life with Lina Schäfer.[1][5] During World War I she lived with Schäfer in Germany at the risk of being called a traitor. She and Lina were attributed with helping many Jewish families escape to the United Kingdom, even housing them during World War II. None of the family members seemed to have opposed this relationship.[1][5] Schäfer died on 26 August 1938 at the age of 79,[6] leaving the Princess deeply saddened. After the Nazis came to power, on the advice of Dr. Fritz Ratig, her neighbour and accountant, she left Germany in November 1937 after disposing of all her property and moved to England via Switzerland.[1]

In July 1997 a news item appeared which was related to a list of more than 5,000 dormant accounts in Swiss banks published by the Swiss Bankers Association at the insistence of Holocaust survivors. This list contained the name of the Princess with the address recorded as "Duleep Singh, Catherine (Princess), last heard of in 1942 living in Penn, Bucks", as one of the account holders. These accounts had not been operated since the end of the Second World War.[2][8][9]

There were a large number of claimants to the joint account of the Princess with her governess Lina Schäfer, from the Government of India and relatives in Punjab and Pakistan. There were no recorded living direct descendants of the family as none of Duleep Singh's children had any offspring. A three-member Claims Resolution Tribunal was set up in Zurich to process the claims.

During the three years of hearing on the claims of various parties held by the tribunal, the Government of India's claim was considered untenable as the princess had not ruled over any princely state and her account in the bank was private. The tribunal also rejected all the claims from her relations in India and Europe. The tribunal then identified the Supra family (Supra was the caretaker-cum-tutor of the princess's sister Bamba. As Bamba was also childless, she had bequeathed her estate to Supra) in Pakistan who had not initially staked their claim as that family was the beneficiary of Bamba's fortune according to a will signed by her in 1942, and Princess Catherine had named Bamba as a beneficiary in her will of 1935. The tribunal then gave its award in favour of Supra's "five living sons – four in Pakistan and one in India – and his deceased daughter's children will receive an equal share of the assets besides the interest on the amount". The assets totalled 137,323 Swiss Francs (Rs 39.8 lakh).[9]

• https://blog.hrp.org.uk/curators/hampton-court-princess-catherine-duleep-singh/

• Anand, Anita (2015). Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4088-3546-3.
• Singh, Gurharpal; Tatla, Darsham Singh (2006). Sikhs in Britain: The Making of a Community. Zed Books. p. 45. ISBN 978-1-84277-717-6.
• Visram, Rozina (2002). Asians In Britain: 400 Years of History. Pluto Press. ISBN 978-0-7453-1378-8.