Lichfield Cathedral houses a war memorial to the soldiers who defeated Punjab’s Sikh Empire in the 1840s.

But on the losing side of the Anglo-Sikh Wars stood a woman: Maharani (Queen) Jind Kaur – Queen Regent, separated from her only child, imprisoned, and exiled – leaving her ten-year-old son, Maharaja Duleep Singh, to surrender the Koh-i-Noor diamond to the Queen of England – and the Sikh Kingdom of Punjab with it.

If Queen Jind Kaur of Punjab was defeated, then why, at the height of British Empire, did Charles Dickens record in 1863 that, according to Lord Dalhousie, she was “the only person our government near feared”?

Join heritage detective Sundeep Braich at Erasmus Darwin House to find out.