Sophia Duleep Singh, Indian princess and suffragette, honoured with blue plaque in London

Commemorative badge will mark large house in which she lived near Hampton Court Palace, south-west London

Sophia Duleep Singh selling The Suffragette newspaper in 1913. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

An Indian princess who was a leader of the suffragette movement has been honoured with a blue heritage plaque in London.

Sophia Duleep Singh, the daughter of a deposed Indian maharaja and the goddaughter of Queen Victoria, used her fame, position and tenacity in the fight for gender equality in the early 20th century.

The honour was announced by English Heritage on Thursday.

The blue plaque awards celebrate the links between notable figures and the buildings in which they had lived and worked.

Princess Sophia was an active suffragette. She belonged to the Women’s Tax Resistance League, whose slogan was 'No Vote, No Tax'. Her refusal to pay tax led to her being prosecuted several times and some of her possessions were impounded.

A committed campaigner for women’s rights and an active fund-raiser, she could often be seen selling The Suffragette newspaper outside Hampton Court Palace, south-west London. Her plaque will be installed at the large house near the palace which was granted to her and her sisters by Queen Victoria in 1896.

English Heritage aims to award 12 plaques each year.

“Every year, English Heritage's blue plaques offer a glimpse of the very best of human achievement,” said Prof William Whyte, trustee and chairman of the Blue Plaques Panel.

English Heritage said the achievements of this year's class spanned fields such as the arts, music, social reform and politics.

Also being honoured is another suffragette, Emily Wilding Davison, who was killed after throwing herself under George V's horse at the 1913 Epsom Derby.

Other recipients include violinist and composer Yehudi Menuhin and activist Claudia Jones, known as “the founding spirit of Notting Hill Carnival”.

Menuhin's plaque will commemorate the six-storey house in Belgravia, London, where the American-born musician lived, worked and entertained for the last 16 years of his life until 1999.

Much of his teaching and mentoring took place in his studio on the fourth floor, where he also practised yoga, including his now famous headstand pose.

Journalist and antiracism activist Jones will be honoured with a plaque erected at the shared dwelling in Vauxhall, south London, where she lived for four years from the late 1950s.