Princess Bamba

Princess Bamba Duleep Singh
Princess of Punjab
Bamba at the Buckingham Palace, Debutante's ball in 1894.
Born	(1869-09-29)29 September 1869 London, England, United Kingdom
Died	10 March 1957(1957-03-10) (aged 87) Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
Burial	Christian Cemetery, Gulbarg, Lahore
Spouse	Dr. David Waters Sutherland
Full name Bamba Sofiá Jindan
Father	Duleep Singh
Mother	Bamba Müller

Princess Bamba Sutherland (29 September 1869–10 March 1957) was the last surviving member of the family that had ruled the Sikh Empire in the Punjab. After a childhood in England, she settled in Lahore, the capital of what had been her father’s kingdom, where she was said to have "lived like an alien".

Bamba Sofia Jindan Duleep Singh was the eldest daughter of Maharaja Duleep Singh and his first wife Bamba Müller. She was born on 29 September 1869 in London. She led an unusual life as her father (the ruler of the Punjab) had been brought to Britain as a child under the care of the East India Company, after the close of the Second Anglo-Sikh War and the subsequent annexation of the Punjab on 29 March 1849.

Bamba's future father was forcibly separated from his mother and brought up as a Christian. When Duleep returned from burying his mother in India he married an illegitimate girl who was working at a missionary school in Cairo. He brought her back to England as his wife and they lived a life of luxury and were known to Queen Victoria. Bamba was their first daughter and was named after her mother, her maternal grandmother and her paternal grandmother respectively. The name "Bamba" means pink in Arabic. Her mother was brought up in Cairo and was of German and Abyssinian descent.

Bamba's grandmother, Jind Kaur, suffered a poor life in India after Bamba's father was taken from her. 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's ashes after she died in Britain, although the body had to remain at Kensal Green Cemetery for nearly a year whilst this was agreed. His mother's ashes were not allowed to be buried in Lahore but had to be placed in a memorial in Bombay.

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, whose own father Lt Col. James Oliphant was her father's equerry. There she completed her schooling until she went to Somerville College at Oxford.