Maharaja Duleep Singh was born on 6 September 1838, in Lahore. He was the last Sikh ruler of the Sikh Raj. He was the youngest son of the Maharaja Ranjit Singh Sher-e-Punjab and Maharani Jind Kaur. Maharaja Duleep Singh Was also called the Black Prince Of Perthshire.

 In the year 1843, when Maharaja Duleep Singh was just five years old, he ascended to the throne of the Sikh empire. With his mother, Maharani Jind Kaur, serving as his Regent, he was crowned the Maharaja of Punjab. After their defeat in the Anglo-Sikh War, they were placed under the administration of a British Resident since the king was too young to manage the kingdom's affairs on his own. At the age of 15, the British Crown removed him from power and deported him to Britain, where Queen Victoria made friends with him. The Queen served as the godmother to several of his offspring. He spent the majority of his latter years in the UK, where he passed away at a young age.

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He was able to reunite with his mother, who had effectively governed him when he was a child, on January 16, 1861, in Calcutta, and travel back to the UK with her. During the last two years of his mother's life, his mother explained his Sikh heritage and the Empire that once belonged to him. 

After Maharaja Ranjit Singh died in 1839, Duleep Singh and his mother, Jind Kaur Aulakh, lived in peace in Jammu, which was ruled by Gulab Singh under the watchful eye of the Vizier, Raja Dhian Singh.

In 1843, after the murders of Maharaja Sher Singh and Dhian Singh, he and his mother were sent back to Lahore. On September 16, 1843, at the age of five, Duleep Singh was proclaimed Maharaja of the Sikh Empire, with Maharani Jind Kaur as Regent.

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The British kept the Maharaja as titular ruler after winning the First Anglo-Sikh War in 1845, but they replaced the Maharani with a Council of Regency and ultimately imprisoned and banished her. For more than 13 years, Duleep Singh was forbidden from seeing his mother. 

The British authorities in India intercepted Singh's letter to his mother in Kathmandu when he was 18 and prevented him from reaching her. A courier, Pundit Nehemiah Gore, was also intercepted and prohibited from contacting the Maharani. Duleep Singh then decided to go on his own. Login wrote a letter to the British Resident in Kathmandu, who reported Maharani’s grim current condition. She was blind and had lost much of her characteristic fire. The British government decided she wasn't a threat and she was allowed to return to England with her son on 16 January 1861.

In 1863, Maharaja Duleep Singh (as he became in June 1861) purchased a 17,000 acre (69 km2) country estate at Elveden on the boundary between Norfolk and Suffolk, close to Thetford. He enjoyed living in Elveden Hall and the surrounding area, and he restored the church, cottages, and school. He turned the run-down estate into an efficient game preserve, and it was here that he established his reputation as England's fourth-best shot. The house was transformed into a quasi-oriental palace in which he lived as a British aristocrat. Maharaja Duleep Singh was accused of overspending, and his estate was sold after his death to pay his debts.

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In 1864, Duleep Singh married Bamba Müller in Cairo and settled at Elveden Hall in Suffolk. Following his disillusion and embitterment with the British, he returned to India in 1886 and reverted to the religion of Sikhism. 

He was eager to go back to India and wanted to learn more about Sikhism while he was in exile. His handlers had previously prevented him from reaching out to his cousin Sardar Thakar Singh Sandhawalia, who had left Amritsar for England on September 28, 1884, together with his sons Narinder Singh and Gurdit Singh, and a Sikh granthi (priest), Pratap Singh Giani. Additionally, he brought a list of the Indian assets owned by Sir Duleep Singh. All of this strengthened his ties to Sikhism. 

Drained financially and destitute of friends, he passed away on October 22, 1893, at the age of 55 in his modest hotel room in Paris. Due to the symbolic value, of the funeral of the son of the Lion of Punjab might have caused and the growing resentment of British rule, Maharaja Duleep Singh's wish to return his body to India was not honored, due to fear of unrest. Under the supervision of the India Office, his body was buried at Elveden Church beside the graves of his wife Maharani Bamba, and his son Prince Edward Albert Duleep Singh. The graves are located on the west side of the Church.

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