Queen Victoria became her godmother, and gave her own name too

On 30 June 1852, in Queen Victoria’s private chapel at Buckingham Palace, an 11-year-old Indian princess named Gowramma was baptised in the presence of the Queen, her family, senior government officials and directors of the East India Company. Soon after, Queen Victoria presented her with an autographed Bible and announced herself as the girl’s godmother.

The Queen went further still, lending Gowramma her own name. Princess Victoria Gowramma of Coorg, as she came to be known, became the first Indian royal to embrace Christianity. In her journal, Queen Victoria wrote of the girl’s father: ‘He has come here with the intention of leaving his little girl, to be brought up as a Christian, which is a great step… The daughter… is nearly 11, a dear, pretty little girl.’

Gowramma’s father was Chikka Veerarajendra, the last Raja of Kodagu, or Coorg, who had been deposed by the British in 1834 after losing the Coorg War, and held as a political prisoner in Benaras for 14 years. In 1852, he travelled to London with his young daughter to demand the return of his ancestral wealth and to secure her a future under Christianity.

Raised by an army couple, Major and Mrs Drummond, and educated in Western ideologies, Gowramma was described as elegant, jovial and doted upon by the Queen. But her fairytale beginning did not last. She died of tuberculosis in 1864, a few months short of her 23rd birthday, and her grave now stands dilapidated in Brompton Cemetery in London.

Image: Wikimedia Commons/by Roger Fenton