In a Norfolk market town on a small island in the river Thet there’s a statue of Maharaja Duleep Singh of Lahore, last Sikh ruler of the Punjab. How did an Indian Prince come to be in Thetford?

In 1843, when he was five, Duleep Singh was declared Maharaja of the Punjab. Five years later the territory was annexed by the British East India Company and, aged ten, he was forced to renounce all claims of sovereignty, lands and possessions in exchange for a British government pension of £40,000 a year. The scintillating Koh-i-Noor diamond, set in the Queen Mother’s Crown, was thus ‘gifted’ and continues to be the subject of international diplomatic controversy.

Duleep Singh converted to Christianity in 1853. His family became Thetford residents in 1854, living at nearby Elveden Hall. Queen Victoria, enchanted by exoticism, became godmother to his children. Yet, the privileged life of the ‘Black Prince of Perthshire’, so called for his love of the Scottish Highlands, became one of increasingly fractured identity. This English aristocrat was also a human trophy of colonial rule, a Victorian gentleman caged by British imperialism. Eventually, embittered, he reverted to Sikhism. He yearned for his homeland and attempted to reclaim the Punjab, but the British thwarted his efforts. Duleep Singh died alone and impoverished in a hotel room in Paris in 1893. His wish for his body to be returned to India was not honoured. He is buried in Elveden church beside his wife and son.