Quote · Empire: World History
372. The First British Indians: The Sisters Rejected By Queen Victoria (Ep 4)
Where this was said
Who Were Pauline and Irene? Class, Race, and the Wrong Mother
At 9:03 · chapter starts 4:20
Anita and William turn at last to the two sisters whose names have been dropped throughout the series: Princess Pauline and Princess Ada Irene Beryl Duleep Singh. Their names alone tell the story — no Jindan, no Victoria, no Alexandrina, just Beryl — working-class names that confirmed their exclusion from royal society [1] — Anita Anand "Pauline and Irene Duleep Singh were the daughters of Maharaja Duleep Singh and his second wife Ada Wetherall, a working-class woman Queen V…" 04:11 . Their mother was Ada Wetherall, a woman William speculates worked in what Anita calls 'a knocking shop', who caught the eye of the Maharaja. Anita explains that Queen Victoria didn't just dislike Ada because of her race — this was about class. Duleep Singh had broken the code: illegitimate children were forgivable; marrying the chambermaid was not. With their father increasingly cast as an enemy of the state — lampooned in Punch dancing with a Russian bear — and their mother's status beyond the pale, Pauline and Irene had no protection and no patron.
The British establishment would overlook brown skin if it came with a title. Maharajas got into clubs and courts; Ada and her daughters got nothing. Pauline and Irene suffered not just racial prejudice but the added burden of their mother's low class.
