Ranjitsinhji ('Ranji') Vibhaji, Maharaja Jam Sahib of Navanagar

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Ranjitsinhji ('Ranji') Vibhaji, Maharaja Jam Sahib of Navanagar

by (Karl Anton) Reinhold Thiele
silver printing-out paper print, late 1890s
11 in. x 8 3/4 in. (279 mm x 224 mm)
Given by Kusoom Vadgama, 1999
Primary Collection
NPG P731

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  • Pepper, Terence, High Society: Photographs 1897-1914, 1998 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 30 January to 21 June 1998), p. 41 Read entry

    Ranjitsinhji, popularly known as Prince Ranji or KS (Kumar Shri, meaning prince), was educated in India and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he first took up cricket seriously and received his ‘Blue’. He joined the Sussex team in 1895 and later also played for England against Australia. He scored 24,000 runs in first-class cricket and was nicknamed ‘Rin-Getsinhji’ by Punch. In 1906 he succeeded his cousin as Maharaja and did much to develop and rebuild Nawanagar. He raised troops for World War I and served at the Front in 1914-15.

    As a leading sportsman, Prince Ranjitsinhji also enjoyed cycling. Here he rides a Royal Enfield bicycle.

  • Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 454

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Events of 1897back to top

Current affairs

Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee is marked by a series of celebratory events, and attended by eleven colonial prime ministers following the Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain's proposal that the Jubilee be made a festival of the British Empire.
The Workmen's Compensation Act gives workmen a right to a limited compensation in every case of injury by accident arising from the course of employment; it is a landmark piece of legislation in employment law.

Art and science

Bram Stoker's Dracula is first published.
Henry Tate of the Tate and Lyle sugar company donates his art collection to the nation, buying land and building a gallery space for it (now Tate Britain).
Physician and psychologist Havelock Ellis publishes the first volume of his Studies in the Psychology of Sex, and the English physicist John Thompson discovers the existence of the electron.

International

The burning of Benin city by Britain takes place, known also as the Punitive Exhibition of 1897. The excursion, led by Admiral Sir Harry Rawson, was a response to an attack by Benin warriors on a British delegation sent to settle a dispute over customs duties collected by British traders. During the expedition the British Admiralty destroyed much of the city's treasured art, including the Benin Bronzes, auctioning off the rest as war booty to recoup costs.

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