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White man stumbles on link to Maharajah Duleep Singh
WSN Bureau

London: A white debt collector from Halifax has claimed he belongs to the family of Maharajah Duleep Singh, the last Sikh king.

Duleep Singh, the son of the legendary Maharaja Ranjit Singh, came to the throne of Punjab in 1843. After annexation of the Punjab in 1849, he was deposed at the age of 11 by the East India Company and sent to England, where he lived in exile most of his life.

Duleep Singh, who married twice, had eight children in total, six from his first marriage to Bamba (Princes Victor, Frederick, and Albert Edward Duleep Singh, and Princesses Bamba, Catherine and Sophia Duleep Singh) and Princesses Pauline Alexandra Duleep Singh and Ada Irene Beryl Duleep Singh from his second marriage to Ada. None of his eight children officially had any children.

Bob Goddard, 64, stumbled upon his genetic links to Maharaja Duleep Singh just because he regularly gives blood. A regular blood donor, Goddard found that his blood samples showed an unusual combination of minor blood groups usually found in non-white populations.

This pushed him to research his family tree and he got the explanation from a relative. He discovered that his grandfather, Charlie Goddard, who was born in 1888, was the illegitimate son of an unmarried serving maid at Breckles Hall in Norfolk. "It seems my grandfather was the illegitimate child of a serving maid at Breckles House in Norfolk," he told the Daily Mail. "She would never reveal the identity of the father, but it was rumoured that he was an Indian prince who stayed there."

The house was the home of Prince Freddy, the second son of Duleep Singh. Although Mr Goddard said it was not impossible Maharajah Duleep Singh is his great-grandfather, the evidence points to his second son Frederick.

Goddard said both his grandfather and father were tanned but he never suspected there might be Indian origins. "It’s certainly interesting, although it doesn’t make me feel any different," he said about his new-found royal connections.

Goddard was born in Harrow in 1944 and is now a father-of-two. Amy Lansdown-Nasson, of the National Blood Service, said: "We are delighted to have played a part in uncovering Bob's unusual family history and hope his story will inspire more people to become donors."

5 March 2008
 

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