Above: Prince Victor Duleep Singh.
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Bonhams To Auction Gun Belonging To Duleep Singh's Son
NEWS REPORT
London, England
Leading auction house Bonhams' sporting gun sale next month will include a weapon with a remarkable history - it was made for a young Sikh prince of the 19th century, a godson of Queen Victoria. The Sikh Kingdom of Punjab had been annexed by the British to the Raj after his father, Maharaja Duleep Singh was taken captive as a child and sent to life-long exile in Britain.
The unusual 12-bore hammer gun by J Purdey & Sons, made for Prince Victor Duleep Singh, is estimated to sell for 2,000 pounds to 3,000 pounds at Bonhams.
The makers have confirmed that the gun was completed as one of a pair of guns for the Prince.
The gun appears to have been purchased for the prince when he was 15 years old, and as such may well have been one of his earliest guns.
The eldest son of Maharajah Duleep Singh, the last Emperor of Punjab, Prince Victor Albert Jay Duleep Singh (1866-1918), was born in England and baptised in the private chapel at Windsor Castle. He was raised a Christian because his father, while still a child, had been pressured into converting to Christianity and denied the right to return to Punjab with his family.
The prince spent most of his life in activities associated with British nobility, including hunting and shooting. An invitation to the Duleep Singh family estate of Elveden, in Norfolk, was the most sought after amongst European royalty, and it played host to many shooting parties and some of the best shots of the day.
Elveden was sold to the 1st Earl of Iveagh in 1894 after the death of Prince Victor's father, and is now held by his descendant, the latest scion of the family known best for its Guniness distilleries.
Raised on his father's estate at Elveden in Norfolk, Victor was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, before attending Sandhurst. He was commissioned as a lieutenant in the 1st (Royal) Dragoons, and by 1889 he was based at Halifax, Nova Scotia as honorary aide-de-camp to General Sir John Ross, then commander of forces in British North America.
In 1894, the same year he was promoted to Captain, he married Lady Anne Coventry, the youngest daughter of the 9th Earl of Coventry and whom he had first met while at Cambridge.
The marriage was made possible through the intervention of Prince of Wales - a close friend of Duleep Singh who succeed Queen Victoria as King Edward VII) - and the wedding at. St Peter's Church in Eaton Square was attended by Queen Victoria herself.
In the later part of his life, much of his time was spent with George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, a lifelong friend, whom he had first met at Eton and who shared his love for shooting. The Earl was the man behind the search for and ultimate discovery and excavation of Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt.
[Courtesy: Press Trust of India. Edited for sikhchic.com]
March 12, 2012