English Heritage which runs the Blue Plaque scheme, said in the announcement note, “Daughter of the deposed Maharajah Duleep Singh, who already has a plaque in Holland Park (London), and goddaughter of Queen Victoria, Princess Sophia Duleep Singh was an active suffragette and made full use of her royal title to generate support for female enfranchisement."
“She was a dedicated member of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) and the Women’s Tax Resistance League (WTRL). The plaque will mark the large house near Hampton Court Palace which was granted to Sophia and her sisters as a grace and favour apartment by Queen Victoria in 1896," it notes.
Apart from Singh, fellow suffragette Emily Wilding Davison’s home in Kensington in London and violinist and composer Yehudi Menuhin's six-storey house in Belgravia, where he lived for the last 16 years of his life, will also be honoured with Blue Plaque.
Others include anti-racism activist Claudia Jones, London’s first female Mayor Ada Salter and Pre-Raphaelite model Marie Spartali Stillman.
Last year, to coincide with the 75th anniversary celebrations of Indian Independence, the south London home where Dadabhai Naoroji lived for around eight years at the end of the 19th century was commemorated with a Blue Plaque.
The prominent member of the Indian freedom struggle and Britain’s first Indian parliamentarian, often referred to as the “grand old man of India", is reported to have moved to Washington House, 72 Anerley Park, Penge, Bromley, at a time when his thoughts were turning increasingly towards full independence for India in 1897.
(With inputs from agencies)
