Maharajah Duleep Singh

A carte-de-visite portrait of Maharajah Duleep Singh (1838-1893), the strikingly good-looking Indian prince who was taken into British protection when his father was deposed in 1846.

When the British East India Company annexed the Punjab in 1849, at a time of disturbance and unrest, they deposed the Maharajah Duleep Singh of Lahore (then aged ten and a half), gave him a pension and appointed Dr. John Login as his guardian. The Maharajah became a Christian and was baptized in 1853. He was later to settle in England, to which he paid his first visit in April 1854. He met Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace in July of the same year and later stayed with the Royal Family at Osborne House from 21 to 24 August.

The friendship between the Maharajah and the Royal Family was to last for the rest of his life but was not always free from difficulties. These led to disagreements between him and the Queen, but the two were reconciled before Duleep Singh’s death in 1893.

Photographed by John Mayall of London and Brighton.