Randhir Singh of Kapurthala


Sir Randhir Singh Sahib Bahadur was the ruling Raja of the princely state of Kapurthala in British India from 1852 until his death in 1870.

Biography

Randhir Singh succeeded his father Nihal Singh Sahib Bahadur as the ruler of Kapurthala on 13 September 1852. During the Indian Rebellion of 1857, Randhir Singh assisted the British, first at Jalandhar and later led a mixed force in Awadh where he fought against the rebel soldiers.
He had two sons and one daughter by his first wife, one son by his second, and three daughters by his third wife, Rajkumari Bibiji, who was the daughter of Robert Theodore Hodges, former tutor to Raja Randhir Singh when the latter was prince and heir apparent. By the late 1850s, the ruler's annual income was only one lakh rupees, so he sought to marry the daughter of a Britisher who managed his estate. Randhir married Henrietta in 1859 but the couple would divorce a decade later in 1869. After their divorce, Henrietta took their daughters to England. In 1864, Randhir Singh had invited two Christian missionaries to set themselves up in his domain to preach, making him one of the first non-Christian Indian nobles to do so.
Randhir Singh died near the Gulf of Aden on 2 April 1870 on a visit to Europe on board the SS Golconda.

Honours

Family

His sons included Raja Kharak Singh Sahib Bahadur, who succeeded him and Raja Harnam Singh. Among his grandsons were Maharaja Jagatjit Singh, who ruled Kapurthala for 67 years, Sardar Bhagat Singh, who was one of the few Indian justices of High Court during the British Raj, and Stuart Gilbert, the British translator. Among his daughters were Melvina Kaur Sahiba and Hellen Marion Ahluwalia.

Sons

Daughters