author
Baron Rowland George Allanson-Winn Headley
1855–1935
Known both as the 5th Baron Headley and as Shaikh Rahmatullah al-Farooq, he brought an unusual mix of aristocratic life, engineering work, and religious writing to his books. He is especially remembered today for a classic fencing manual and for his place in the early history of Islam in Britain.
1 Audiobook
Broad-Sword and Single-Stick With Chapters on Quarter-Staff, Bayonet, Cudgel, Shillalah, Walking-Stick, Umbrella and Other Weapons of Self-Defence
by Baron Rowland George Allanson-Winn Headley, Clive Phillipps-Wolley
About the author
Born in 1855, this Anglo-Irish peer wrote under the name Baron Headley and is linked in public-domain library records with Broad-Sword and Single-Stick, a well-known late 19th-century manual on swordsmanship. That practical, instructional side of his work helps explain why his name still appears in martial arts and historical fencing circles.
He is also remembered for a very different reason: Wikipedia describes him as Rowland Allanson-Winn, 5th Baron Headley, an Irish peer who converted to Islam and became a prominent member of the Woking Muslim Mission. He later became known as Shaikh Rahmatullah al-Farooq, and his life has drawn interest from readers studying early Muslim communities in Britain.
Taken together, his career feels unusually wide-ranging. He stands out as a writer whose legacy reaches across sport, religion, and public life, which gives his work a distinct historical curiosity even now.