She was also a goddaughter of Queen Victoria
Sophia grew up in Elveden on the Norfolk-Suffolk border before moving in 1896 to Faraday House, a grace-and-favour apartment owned by Queen Victoria.From 1909 she was active in the WSPU Richmond and Kingston district branches and would sell copies of The Suffragette newspaper at her pitch outside Hampton Court Palace.
In 1911 Sophia threw a suffragette poster reading "Give women the vote!" at Prime Minister Herbert Asquith's car, at the state opening of Parliament., when more than 300 suffragettes, including Dr Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Pankhurst, marched to Parliament Square and demanded to see the prime minister.
The demonstration descended into violence when Asquith refused to see the suffragettes, with police beating the women who refused to leave. Sophia rescued one woman from an officer.Princess Sophia was one of some 10,000 women who took part in the Women's War Work Procession in 1915, led by Emmeline Pankhurst
Beyond her enfranchisement campaigning, Sophia supported the Indian Women's Education Association in London, nursed Indian soldiers during World War One and housed evacuees during World War Two. The journalist Anita Anand, author of a biography about the princess, said: "We owe Sophia such a debt of gratitude because without her courage and the courage of women like her, you can't take it for granted that we would have the right to vote in this country.Follow BBC London on
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