Early Life

Rowland George Allanson Allanson-Winn was born in London and educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He then entered the Middle Temple before commencing studies at King’s College London. He subsequently became a civil engineer working in the UK, Ireland and India. He was twice awarded the Bessemer Premium of the Society of Engineers and also the Silver Medals of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts and of the Institute of Civil Engineers of Ireland. Later he was elected President of the Society of Engineers, London.

He was an enthusiastic practitioner of boxing, as well as other arts of self-defence, and in 1890 co-authored, with C. Phillipps-Wolley, the classic Broad-sword and Singlestick (1890). He was solo author of Boxing (1889) in the same All-England Series, which was reprinted in 2006. In 1899, he married Teresa Johnson, daughter of William H Johnson, former Wazir-wazirat (governor) of Ladakh (Jammu and Kashmir), India. She died in 1919.

Conversion to Islam

Headley converted to Islam on 16 November 1913 and adopted the Muslim name of Shaikh Rahmatullah al-Farooq. In 1914 he established the British Muslim Society. He was the author of several books on Islam including A Western Awakening to Islam (1914) and Three Great Prophets of the World. He was a widely travelled man and twice performed the Hajj.

He inherited his peerage from his cousin in 1913. In 1921, he married the Australian author Barbara Baynton. He became bankrupt in 1922. He was offered the throne of Albania in 1925, along with a payment of $500,000, and $50,000 per year but refused it, at which point Lady Headley returned to Melbourne where she died in 1929.

Headley lived at Ivy Lodge, St Peter’s Road, St Margarets from 1914 until 1926. From 1929 he owned and lived at Ashton Gifford House near Codford in Wiltshire. He is buried in the Muslim section of Brookwood Cemetery.