Her father lost his kingdom to the British, then lost his daughter to their queen

Chikka Veerarajendra, the last Raja of Kodagu, or Coorg, was deposed by the British on 24 April 1834 after losing the Coorg War to the East India Company. Under the orders of army officer James Stuart Fraser, his kingdom was annexed to British India, and he was taken as a political prisoner to Benaras, where he lived for 14 years.

In 1852, he travelled to London with his 11-year-old daughter, Gowramma, to demand the return of his ancestral wealth and to secure a safe, Christian future for her. Governor-General Lord Dalhousie and the East India Company’s directors granted them permission to travel, making the father and daughter the first Indian royals to set foot in England. The company reportedly hoped the princess’s voluntary conversion would help improve its image back in Britain.

On 30 June 1852, Gowramma was baptised in Queen Victoria’s private chapel at Buckingham Palace, becoming the first Indian royal to embrace Christianity. Queen Victoria became her godmother and lent her the name ‘Victoria,’ and the princess was raised by an army couple, Major and Mrs Drummond, who educated her in Western ideologies.

Her father, meanwhile, remained a political prisoner. According to historians, the princess was later barred from meeting him by the Queen, who claimed he would ‘corrupt’ her with his ‘native, heathen influence.’ Gowramma died of tuberculosis in 1864, just short of her 23rd birthday, her grave now standing dilapidated in London’s Brompton Cemetery.

Image: Wikimedia Commons/by Roger Fenton