In this episiode I get to talk to Bhupinder Singh Bance, also known as Peter Bance is a sikh historian, author, art collector and Maharaja Duleep Singh archivist. In fact, His collection has been exhibited worldwide including at the Victoria & Albert Museum, The British Museum, and the Bard Graduate Centre in New York.
He has written for the Times and The Oxford National Biography & is the author of four books - The Duleep Singhs: Photograph Album of Queen Victoria's Maharajah (2004) Sikhs in Britain: 150 Years of Photography (2007) Khalsa Jatha British Isles Centenary 1908-2008 (2008) Sovereign, Squire and Rebel: Maharajah Duleep Singh & the Heirs of a Lost Kingdom (2009) Sikhs in Britain: 150 Years of Photography (2012),
He has also appeared in many BBC programmes such as The Story Of The Turban (2012), Inside Out (2004), Desi DNA (2005), Britain's Maharajah (2013), Sophia: Suffragette Princess (2015) and The Stolen Maharajah: Britain's Indian Royal (2018)
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As always here is a breakdown of the conversation:
00:00 - Introduction
03:25 - A doctor in India but a door-to-door seller in England
04:23 - Why was peddling the go to occupation for early Sikh settlers in England?
05:09 - Why did your family come to the UK?
06:38 - Ancestry - Shaheedi Misl and Baba Deep Singh Ji
08:13 - How did you go from a marketing degree to being a historian of Sikh history?
14:21 - What type of items did you come across in your initial research?
14:35 - What was it about the Maharaja that attracted you so much?
16:38 - Anecdote of Prince Frederick Duleep Singh
17:37 - The view of the Sikh Royal Family in East Anglia
19:36 - Princess Catherine Hilda Duleep Singh - The Punjabi Schindler
20:59 - How was Catherine practically able to do this and also evade being caught?
25:43 - Sister Suffragettes
28:04 - Anita Anand and the suffragette story
28:19 - How did the descendants of M. Ranjit Singh identify and view themselves?
33:00 - The Pension that was never paid
34:00 - A Russian Promise - 20k soldiers to march into Punjab via Afghanistan
37:11 - The personal notebook of Maharaja Duleep Singh
38:17 - The daughters of M. Duleep Singh
39:30 - Guns of M. Duleep Singh - The Rolls Royce of Guns
42:16 - How many wives and children did M. Duleep Singh have?
44:14 - Museums and Repatriation
48:21- A painting of a Prince
52:48 - The Ramgharia Bakery
55:25 - Monte Carlo
01:01:32 - Rani Jinda Gravestone & Catacombs
01:06:57 - Princess Pauline
01:15:13 - Are you aware of the Sikh Royal Family visitng their items in a museum?
01:16:42 - £1.7million Statue
01:25:32 - Illegitimate heirs to the throne
01:28:48 - How many illegitimate heirs?
01:30:18 - Sid Hammond
01:31:53 - End of the legitimate heirs of M. Ranjit Singh
01:34:32 - Interesting finds & advice in entering the field of Sikh history
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