Bamba Muller & Bamba Sutherland: The Last Marharani & The Lost Princess

Maharani Bamba Duleep Singh was born Bamba Müller on July 6, 1848. From humble beginings in a Cairo orphanage, being brought up by Christian missionaries, she eventually married Prince Duleep Singh and became Maharani Bamba, wife of the last Maharaja of Lahore.  Her transformation from mixed race illegitimate child to Maharani living a life of luxury has often been compared to the "Cinderella" story. The name Bamba is Arabic for "pink" and she passed it on to her eldest daughter, Princess Bamba Sutherland who was born and educated in England and eventually married a Doctor in Lahore.

Maharani Bamba Duleep Singh

Bamba Müller was the daughter of Ludwig Müller, a German merchant banker with the company Todd Müller and Co, and his Abyssinian mistress, Sofia. Ludwig placed his illegitimate daughter in the care of missionaries in Cairo. He requested and paid for her education and he was still in contact with the missionaries throughout her childhood. Bamba became an enthusiastic and charismatic member of the Christian community and was the only female in a select group of communicants at the American Presbyterian Mission school in Cairo.

 DULEEP SINGH

Duleep Singh had been the last ruler of the Sikh empire before he was dethroned by the British. In 1863 he was being "supervised" in Britain where he was a friend of Queen Victoria. He was known as the "Black Prince of Perthshire" around his home in Scotland.

He was given money by the East India Company on condition that he complied with the will of the British Government. Duleep had been taken to Britain as a child and raised as a Christian. This was after he had been persuaded to agree to British rule of the Punjab. He had also been tricked into giving away the Koh-i-Nor diamond and been separated from his mother, Maharani Jindan Kaur.

JINDAN KAUR

His mother suffered a poor life in India and eventually she was allowed to rejoin her son in England. Duleep collected her after special permission was given.

Duleep was allowed by the British to visit India for the second time to bury his mother after she died in Britain, although the body had to remain at Kensal Green.

MARHARAJA DULEEP SINGH

On his return from Bombay, Duleep passed through Cairo and visited the missionaries there on 10 February 1864. He visited again a few days later and was taken around the girls' school, where he first met Bamba Müller, who was by then an instructor. She was also the only girl there who had fully committed herself to a Christian life. On each subesquent visit Duleep made presents to the mission of several hundreds of pounds.

BAMBA MULLER

Duleep Singh wrote to the teachers at the missionary school at the end of the month in the hope that they would recommend a wife for him as he was to live in Britain and he wanted a Christian wife of Eastern origin. Queen Victoria had told Duleep that he should marry an Indian princess who had been educated in England, but he desired a girl with less sophistication. He wanted to marry the girl he had seen at the Mission - Baba Muller.

The final marriage proposal had to be done via an intermediary as Duleep did not speak Arabic, which was Müller's only language. The missionaries discussed this proposal with Müller. She was unsure whether or not to accept. Her first ambition was to rise to teach children in a missionary school. Her father was consulted, but he left the final choice up to his daughter.

Müller eventually made her decision after praying for guidance. She decided that the marriage was God's call for her to widen her ambitions. Singh made a substantial contribution of one thousand pounds to the school and married Müller on 7 June 1864 in the British Consulate in Alexandria, Egypt. The ceremony was described as brief, with few witnesses. Both of them wore European dress apart from Duleep, who wore a turban. Bamba wore simple jewellery including pearls. She had a short sleeved, moire, antique dress, orange blossoms in her hair, and a veil. The Prince made his vows in English, whilst Bamba spoke in Arabic

The couple had three sons and three daughters whom they brought up at Elveden Hall in Suffolk, England:

• Victor Albert Jay (1866–1918)
• Frederick Victor (1868–1926)
• Bamba Sophia Jindan (1869–1957)
• Catherina Hilda (1871–1942)
• Sophia Alexandrowna (1876–1948)
• Albert Edward Alexander (1879–1893)

BAMBA, CATHERINE & SOPHIA - THE THREE SISTERS

SOPHIA THE SUFFRAGETTE

VICTOR DULEEP SINGH

Victor and Frederick both joined the British Army whilst Frederick became a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. Sophia became an activist in the women's suffrage movement.

Bamba Sophia Jindan, returned to Lahore as the wife of a Dr Sutherland. She was known as Princess Bamba Sutherland, and her own story is told below.

DULEEP SINGH

In 1886 Prince Duleep Singh returned to India. On his way there he was arrested in Aden and forced to return to Europe.

Bamba died on September 18, 1887 and was buried at Elveden. Her husband went on to marry again in 1889 to Ada Douglas Wetherill and had two more children.

Her son Albert Edward Alexander Duleep Singh died aged thirteen in Hastings on May 1, 1893 and was buried next to his mother. When Bamba's husband died, his body was brought back to England and buried with his wife and son at Elveden.

Princess Bamba Sophia Jindan Sutherland

Princess Bamba Sutherland  was the eldest daughter of the last family to rule the Sikh Empire in the Punjab. She returned to Lahore from her childhood in England where she was said to have "lived like an alien in her father’s kingdom".  She was born on 29 September 1869 in London and she led an unusual life - niether wholly British or Indian, she was thought of as "The Lost Sikh Princess".

Bamba lived at Elveden Hall until her mother died from kidney failure. She and the rest of her brothers and sisters were placed in the care of Arthur Oliphant, who was her father's equerry. There she completed her schooling until she went to Somerville College at Oxford.

When Bamba decided to visit India, she placed an advertisement to hire a companion. The lady selected was a Hungarian, Marie Antoinette Gottesmann, whose father was an Austro-Hungarian government official from the Catholic upper class circles of Budapest, with the cultural interests requested. The two of them made a number of visits to India settling in Lahore and Shimla. Whilst with the princess, Marie Antoinette met and married Umrao Singh Sher-Gil and they went to live in Hungary. A notable painter, Amrita Sher-Gil, was the result. Bamba settled alone in Lahore and eventually married the Principal of King Edward Medical College in Lahore - Dr David Waters Sutherland.

In 1924 permission was finally given for her grandmother's ashes to be buried in Lahore. It was Bamba who supervised their transfer from Bombay where they had been placed when her father visited India. Her grandmother had actually died in 1863, but it had taken a year to get permission for her body to be returned to India. This was appropriate as her father had met Bamba's mother in Cairo on his way back from burying his mother's ashes. Bamba deposited the ashes in the memorial to Maharaja Ranjit Singh, her great grandfather.

BAMBA & HER SISTER SOPHIA

Sutherland was widowed in Lahore when her husband died in 1939. She was the last survivor of a royal family who SHOULD have owned the Punjab had it not been for Victorian Imperialism.

When Sutherland died on 10 March 1957, it was said in the press that her funeral was arranged by the United Kingdom Deputy High Commissioner in Lahore. Actually the quiet funeral with very few guests was really arranged by her loyal secretary, Pir Karim Bakhsh Supra.

As the last surviving member of the dynasty, Bamba left a large quantity of important historical items to her secretary, Pir Karim Bakhsh Supra of Lahore. The collection consists of eighteen paintings, fourteen watercolours, 22 paintings on ivory and a number of photos and other articles. The collection was sold to the Pakistan government and it is kept in Lahore Fort. It is known as the Princess Bamba Collection.

A translation of the Persian distich on her gravestone has been translated as:

The difference between royalty and servility vanishes
The moment the writing of destiny is encountered
If one opens the grave of a dead
None would be able to discern rich from poor