Names on the buses

750 Sophia Duleep Singh

Connections with Brighton and Hove : 1876 - 1948 Sophia was a prominent Suffragette. Her fearless activism campaigning for votes for women shook the establishment. Of Indian royalty, she was the daughter of Maharaja Duleep Singh, heir to the Sikh empire who had been deposed by the British and exiled to England in 1854. Sophia was brought up amongst royalty as Queen Victoria's goddaughter and expected to enjoy a comfortable, socialite existence. However, she rejected her upper-class background to focus on women's rights instead, and her activism ran deep. She chaired meetings, attended anti-government protests, smashed windows, and marched to the House of Commons. She auctioned many of her luxury belongings to raise money for the Women's Tax Resistance League. Several times, she courted arrest by withholding tax herself. On one occasion, she even threw herself at the Prime Minister's car holding a sign that read 'Give Women the Vote!'. Sophia's celebrity brought the cause much publicity, and she never ceased to ruffle establishment feathers. After being photographed selling The Suffragette newspaper urging 'Revolution!' outside her home in Hampton Court, King George V was prompted to ask, 'have we no hold on her?' During the First World War Sophia wanted to help the thousands of Indian soldiers fighting for the Allied Powers who were hospitalised in England. She spearheaded fundraising efforts on their behalf. She even trained as a voluntary nurse and put in over two thousand hours' nursing soldiers hospitalised in Isleworth. She came to Brighton, where she had attended school as a child, to visit and spread comfort to the Indian soldiers recuperating in the Royal Pavilion. Sophia also campaigned for women's education and Indian independence. During the Second World War she took in child refugees and never stopped standing up for justice and equality, which she always put before her own comfort and wealth.

750 ADL Enviro400 - carried name since December 2025.