Instagram story viewer> @sundeepbraich> Posts

Sundeep Braich

@sundeepbraich

1.4K

followers

1397

following

Heritage Detective 🔍🔎| Investigating the Koh-i-Noor 💎 & Duleep Singh family story | Top 15% of the Wellcome Collection Non-Fiction Awards 2026 📚

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

Today, 10 September, is World Suicide Prevention Day.
Kensington Palace’s exhibition ‘The Last Princesses of Punjab’ marks Sophia Duleep Singh’s 150th birthday. Many assume that makes her Maharajah Duleep Singh’s youngest daughter. She wasn’t.
2026 marks the centenary of the actual youngest, Princess Irene Duleep Singh, who died by suicide aged 36. Irene was only three when her father died. Before she died, she rewrote her will, leaving everything to Dr Barnardo’s, a children’s charity, in what’s been read as her voice finally being heard about how she’d been treated since childhood.
The exhibition displays 113 objects. Irene and her sister Pauline, the actual last-born princesses, share one banner and one photo each. Named, but faceless, on the family tree.
Queen Victoria denied Pauline and Irene the support she gave their older half-sisters. We don’t have to repeat that injustice.
On her gravestone in Monaco: ‘Fille du Maharajah Duleep Singh.’ It’s written in stone. Every child matters.
On Sunday 20 September, with support from Samaritans, I’m running a free online event for @heritageopendays Heritage Open Days marking Irene’s centenary.
If this affects you, @samaritanscharity Samaritans: 116 123. Life is precious.
#WorldSuicidePreventionDay #Samaritans #HeritageOpenDays #EveryChildMatters #DuleepSingh @mindcharity taken in Kensington Palace by @sundeepbraich

30

11

a month ago

My three-page article can be found in English Heritage’s Volunteer Focus magazine, Issue 23, on pages 22-24. https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/support-us/volunteer/volunteer-focus-magazine/ by @sundeepbraich

56

0

2 years ago

For those who prefer reading posts to watching reels — I’m delighted to share that my Q&A is featured on page 66 of English Heritage’s Spring 2025 magazine! Are you an English Heritage member or volunteer?

Huge thanks to @englishheritage 😊
Just to clarify: my interest in history began in 2016, four years after my amputation in 2012, when I came across the angel statue. That quiet moment sparked a deeper journey into heritage, memory, and identity.

#EnglishHeritage #VolunteerVoices #GrecoRomanLegends #HiddenHistories #DisabilityAndHistory #AngelStatue #HeritageJourney #MemoirInProgress #AmputeeWriter #HistoryMatters #SikhWomen #WomenOfHeritage #LegEnd #HistoricalHealing #EnglishHeritageMagazine #Spring2025 #LivedExperience #HeritageAndIdentity #MuseOfMemory #LegacyAndLoss #Seva #Volunteering #Wroxeter #Letocetum #RomanBritain #Romans #Princess #ArchaeologyUK taken in Letocetum Roman Site by @sundeepbraich

94

4

2 years ago

What is a godmother? Would you like to share your experiences?
Godparenting wasn’t part of my Sikh upbringing, so my first encounter was the fairy godmother in Disney’s Cinderella. But in adulthood, ever since the 2012 Diamond Jubilee, I’ve had reason to be curious about what a godmother means.
The history of Queen Victoria as godmother to 2 of Maharaja Duleep Singh’s 8 children, Prince Victor and Princess Sophia, has helped me understand better. (Btw. Victoria had at least 59 godchildren, according to @findmypast )
Kensington Palace’s exhibition “The Last Princesses of Punjab: Sophia Duleep Singh and the Women Who Shaped Her” features Queen Victoria because of her godmother title. Like the fairy godmother’s midnight deadline, the exhibition ends 8 Nov 2026.
Credit where credit’s due: Queen Victoria supported her goddaughter Sophia even after falling out with her father, Maharaja Duleep Singh. The grace-and-favour home at Hampton Court Palace helped Princess Sophia Duleep Singh build a life & legacy.
But it is more complicated with Sophia’s brother, Prince Victor. Victoria seemed supportive of her godson’s marriage to the English aristocrat Lady Anne Coventry. But the private collector Peter Bance has alleged that Victoria secretly told Lady Anne not to give Prince Victor a child. In other words, a godmother allegedly told her godson’s wife not to give him a baby. The allegation has taken root: it even appears in this book by @sufiyaahmed about Princess Sophia.
If true, what does it suggest about the conflict between Victoria’s roles as godmother, Queen, Empress of India, and mother of nine royal children?
Godparenting is a Christian tradition built on faith and sacred trust, not a legally enforceable contract. I think “godmother” is an impressive title because it combines two powerful ideas, God and motherhood, without requiring someone to be either. The title is an honour, but it guarantees very little.
Queen Victoria’s choices show that “godmother” meant only as much as she chose to make it mean.
What is a godmother to you? I’d love to hear your experiences.
#godmother #queenvictoria #duleepsingh #princesssophia #kensingt taken in Kensington Palace by @sundeepbraich

16

0

3 days ago

What I’m told: “Queen Victoria was Princess Sophia Duleep Singh’s GODMOTHER!”
What I want to understand: “OK, but what does GODMOTHER actually mean?”
At the @ashmoleanmuseum, the new exhibition ‘Aphrodite: The Making of a Goddess’ opened on 8 October 2026 (coinciding with the centenary of Princess Irene Duleep Singh’s death). Aphrodite represents the goddess of the primordial life force behind love, desire, fertility, reproduction, motherhood and continuity. So, this is interesting to think about in the context of: what is a godmother?
‘The Last Princesses of Punjab’ at Kensington Palace ends 8 November 2026. ‘Aphrodite’ is open at the Ashmolean until 11 April 2027.
What do you think being a godmother really means? 🤔 🤷‍♀️
Images include: the Kensington Palace exhibition poster, plus my photos from the exhibition showing Queen Victoria, Sophia’s godmother, and Sophia as a godmother herself, holding her goddaughter Drovna Oxley, c.1938. Also the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, advert for ‘Aphrodite’, which I’m due to visit soon.
#QueenVictoria #Godmother #DuleepSingh #Aphrodite #Goddaughter taken in Kensington Palace by @sundeepbraich

13

2

8 days ago

Abridged version: 100 years ago, on 8 October 1926, Princess Irene Duleep Singh, youngest child of Maharaja Duleep Singh, died in Monaco 🇲🇨. Irene was at the end of the royal bloodline of Punjab’s Sikh Empire: no further births were recorded after hers.
Before she died, Irene tried to cancel her 1925 will, dated 13 April, a date Sikhs and Punjabis will likely recognise as Vaisakhi and the birth of the Khalsa. Irene wanted her fortune to go instead to Dr Barnardo’s, a charity for vulnerable children. After her death, her family challenged the charity in court.
When I read Anita Anand’s brilliant book about Princess Sophia, Irene stood out to me as the heartbeat of this history. Irene was arguably the most vulnerable Duleep Singh, and the yardstick we can measure by. A society, a community and a family are judged by how they treat their most vulnerable.
The most spiritually powerful object in Kensington Palace’s exhibition, ‘The Last Princesses of Punjab’, is arguably the makara bangle, a guardian of boundaries. The princesses’ shared grandmother, Maharani Jind Kaur, gave the makara to her son, Duleep Singh, to protect her family’s continuation. Yet Irene’s was the last recorded birth. The boundary was reached.
Today, coinciding with Irene’s centenary, 8 October 2026, another exhibition, ‘Aphrodite: The Making of a Goddess’, opens at the @ashmoleanmuseum. Aphrodite’s jurisdiction embodies the primordial life forces: love, desire, fertility, reproduction and continuity. Everything Aphrodite represents is what the Duleep Singh line was denied after Irene. The last birth matters; Irene lived to adulthood and became the first of the princesses to marry. The evidence suggests Irene felt most keenly that there would be no children to carry the family on.
We can celebrate a palace exhibition that brands and markets these princesses as ‘the last’, and still ask the painful question: why were no more Duleep Singhs born after Irene?
In memory of Princess Irene, the baby of the Duleep Singhs. Life is precious. 💚
If you need to talk, call @samaritanscharity Samaritans: 116 123 anytime.
#PrincessIrene #DuleepSingh #LastPrincessesOfPunjab #Remembrance #LifeIsPrecious taken in Monaco - Monte Carlo by @sundeepbraich

23

2

10 days ago

#OnThisDay in 1956, Princess Bamba Duleep Singh had her last birthday, aged 87, as the last surviving member of the Duleep Singh family.

Did you know that Princess Bamba and her stepmother, Ada Douglas Wetherill, were both born in 1869? That means Princess Bamba was old enough to be mother to her half-sisters, Princesses Pauline and Irene Duleep Singh.

Irene, Ada and Pauline had all died before Princesses Catherine, Sophia and, last of all, Bamba. Despite their unequal lives, in the end, they were all united by the same destination. A sobering reminder.

#DuleepSingh #PrincessBamba #FinalCountdown #QueenOfPunjab taken in Kensington Palace by @sundeepbraich

17

0

19 days ago

On Tuesday 29 September 2026, it will be 70 years since Princess Bamba Duleep Singh celebrated her last birthday. She turned 87 on 29 September 1956, most likely in Lahore, the former capital of her father’s and grandfather’s Sikh Empire in Punjab. Following the Partition of Punjab in 1947, Lahore was by then in Pakistan rather than India. Bamba died in Lahore on 10 March 1957 and is buried in the city’s Christian cemetery.
I often read Bamba as someone processing complex trauma. Her anger seems to come from a deep sense of injustice.
I wonder how she felt on that last birthday. She could not have known it would be her last, but she did know she was the last surviving Duleep Singh: the only one left. Even her sister-in-law, Princess Victor Duleep Singh (Lady Anne Coventry), had died only a few months earlier, on 2 July 1956. Lady Anne, who is left out of Kensington Palace’s exhibition ‘The Last Princesses of Punjab’, was buried beside Bamba’s elder brother, Prince Victor Duleep Singh, in Monaco.
I wonder whether Bamba made, or could have imagined, the Coventry Cathedral connection to Prince Victor Duleep Singh and his wife, Princess Victor Duleep Singh (Lady Anne Coventry). In March 1956, almost exactly a year before Bamba’s own death, the foundation stone of the new Coventry Cathedral was laid beside the ruins of the old one, destroyed in the Second World War. As a Christian, perhaps Bamba might have found some hope in Coventry’s story of renewal, of rising like a phoenix from the ashes.
Was there hope at the end?
I’ll give that some thought before posting on Tuesday.
#DuleepSingh #PrincessBamba #Birthday #LastBirthday #WomensHistory @sohavi taken in Kensington Palace by @sundeepbraich

52

9

22 days ago

Thank you to everyone who joined my online Heritage Open Days talks about the Duleep Singh family.

Thank you to @heritageopendays for spotlighting my events in the top 10 for online events. It’s so important to make history, heritage and culture accessible.

Thank you to Findmypast @findmypast for being a fantastic resource.

Email 📧 me at Sundeepheritage@gmail.com with any feedback or questions.

Next, I’ll post something for 8 October 2026, which will be Princess Irene Duleep Singh’s centenary.

Thank you to the charity @samaritanscharity Samaritans (116 123) for volunteers attending the talk about Princess Irene Duleep Singh’s story.

#HeritageOpenDays #DuleepSingh #HiddenHeritage #Centenary #Heritage taken in Online Event by @sundeepbraich

19

2

a month ago

For Heritage Open Days 2026, I’ll be offering 4 free online talks exploring the Duleep Singh family on Sunday 20 September 2026. Pre-booking preferred:

10am - Not Your Everyday Princesses: Bamba, Catherine and Sophia Duleep Singh

11.30am - Everyday Histories of a Prince: Frederick Duleep Singh Remembered, Death Centenary 1926–2026

2pm - A Forgotten Princess: The Centenary of Irene Duleep Singh (1926–2026)

4pm - An Everyday Life? Two English Women Who Married Indian Royalty

Book in for one, or settle in for them all. @heritageopendays

The talk about Princess Irene Duleep Singh includes references to suicide and mental health. If you’re struggling, @samaritanscharity Samaritans are available free, 24/7, on 116 123.

#DuleepSingh #HeritageOpenDays #PunjabHistory #BritishHistory #UnsungStories @anita.anand.official @anjhanda @hannah_and_her_press @herkhaani_ischanging taken in Online Event by @sundeepbraich

26

0

a month ago

Can’t get out and about? Then stay in and check out these online Heritage Open Days events that you can enjoy from the comfort of home 💻

Whether you want a 5-minute dip into stories on social media or to settle in for a live talk – from treasure hunts to rescue stories and family history tips, there’s an option for you over the festival

Explore these and many more online events on our website - click the link in our bio and choose 'Festival Spotlights'

#History #HeritageOpenDays #OnlineEvents Collage of historic and heritage images, including a black-and-white photograph of a family gathered around a baby, a historic group photograph of women, a carved wooden figure of a child reading, and an old photograph of women and a child. Text reads: “Online events to enjoy from home.” by @sundeepbraich

34

4

a month ago

Sunday 20 September 2026. Offering 4 free online talks for Heritage Open Days. Pre-booking preferred @heritageopendays @lichfieldradio @norfolkhods #DuleepSingh #Centenary #HeritageOpenDays #OnlineTalk #Unsung 🔗 https://www.heritageopendays.org.uk/whats-on/search-2026-events.html?searchQuery=princess&locationQuery=&startDate=&endDate=&distance=&sortBy=&view=list&popular_filter=online taken in Online Event by @sundeepbraich

4

0

a month ago