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Khalid Sheldrake: The East Dulwich man who would be King
- palmfacehn 2y agoJames Brooke becoming the monarch of Sarawak is another interesting case. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Brooke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Brooke
- teruakohatu 2y agoVery interesting, I had not heard of the Brookes but the last crown price died here in New Zealand in 2011, being a an heir to a biscuit fortune. There was actually a connection between Sheldrake and the Brookes family.
- tetris11 2y agooh wow, I live just round the corner from there. I guess I'll go check out if there's still a mosque there
- zwischenzug 2y agoSo do I!
- moomin 2y agoThere’s a mosque on North Cross Road but that’s only about 35 years old.
- robin_reala 2y agoIn 1928 he conducted the funeral service of Sayaid Ali, an elephant keeper at London Zoo who had been murdered in his bed by a rival elephant keeper. The service was held at Waterloo station, after which the coffin was taken on the Necropolis Railway to the Muslim section of Brookwood Cemetery. History is often stranger than fiction. The Necropolis Railway is definitely worth a read if you haven’t heard of it before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Necropolis_Railway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Necropolis_Railway
- gpderetta 2y agoah, yes, good old Necropolitan Line. I first learned about it in "The Fuller Memorandum", a Laundry Files novel by cstross.
- wrp 2y agoThe Necropolis Railway also features in the Basil Copper novel Necropolis (1980).
- cjs_ac 2y agoClosely related: the Mortuary Railway Station[0] in Sydney, Australia, with services to Rookwood Cemetery[1]. They barely bothered to change the names. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regent_Street_railway_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regent_Street_railway_station [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rookwood_Cemetery_railway_line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rookwood_Cemetery_railway_line
- Loughla 2y ago>to prevent both mourners and cadavers from different social backgrounds from mixing It's always fascinating reading about England's very complicated social class system. Other than the aristocracy being rich, does this still hold up today? Is there still inherent benefit from being a traditionally upper class family, even if they don't have generational wealth still?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- throaway2501 2y agoyou bet there is
- Loughla 2y agoCan you provide some examples?
- rossng 2y ago> In 1928 he conducted the funeral service of Sayaid Ali, an elephant keeper at London Zoo who had been murdered in his bed by a rival elephant keeper. This sentence begs for an entire blog post of its own.
- kombookcha 2y agoYeah, very curious about how there is this calibre of high stakes drama and intrigue among 1920s elephant keepers.
- icodar 2y ago[dead]
- lucozade 2y agoFrom the article Gladys, who had previously converted to Catholicism and Christian Science, had firm ideas about how her conversion to Islam should go. She wanted it performed ‘on no earthly territory’ so in 1932 she chartered a plane to fly from Croydon to Paris and Khalid performed the ceremony over the Channel So yes, she was already investigating religions and this appears to have been her idea.
- InfiniteLoup 2y agoThe article goes even futher: “I particularly wanted to become a Moslem in an aeroplane” she is quoted as saying to a journalist who was on the flight with her, “so that I might be as far from earth and as near to heaven as possible.” Sounds rather like a case of main character syndrome of a bored socialite than that she needed much persuasion to convert.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- dzdt 2y agoI suspect you have a different notion of what conversion meant than Gladys did. For you it seems to be about internal beliefs; for her it was about external declaration, ceremony, and recognition. Likely beliefs had very little to do with the whole thing.
- MrMcCall 2y ago[flagged]
- FooBarBizBazz 2y ago> Khalid performed the ceremony over the Channel with Gladys taking the name Khair ul Nissa. "Khair ul* Nissa"?! This cannot be a coincidence? That was also the name of a young Hyderabadi noblewoman who married the earlier English convert to Islam, James Achilles Kirkpatrick** [1][2]. It caused controversy in Hyderabadi society at the time, but after Kirkpatrick's death, it became widely(?) seen in England as having been a devoted relationship and a very romantic story. IIRC it was Thomas Carlyle who said Kirkpatrick had "scaled walls for" Khair un Nissa. So I will guess that Gladys had heard that story. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Achilles_Kirkpatrick https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Achilles_Kirkpatrick [2] Dalyrumple. White Mughals. * Shouldn't that be "un"? ** How good is that name?
- selimthegrim 2y agoDalrymple
- FooBarBizBazz 2y agoThanks.
- taneliv 2y agoWhether that should be "un", Wikipedia[1] lists both ul- and un- for the name. I'd also have thought the transliteration to take into account Sun letter assimilation rule. Perhaps it was less established, or not so well known to the author. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladys_Milton_Palmer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladys_Milton_Palmer
- n4r9 2y agoThe name "Sheldrake" seems to coincide with colourful characters! The only other instances I know of are the Sheldrake family consisting of: * Rupert, biologist turned crank scientist. * Merlin, science populariser. * Cosmo, musician.
- helsinkiandrew 2y ago> In 1928 he conducted the funeral service of Sayaid Ali, an elephant keeper at London Zoo who had been murdered in his bed by a rival elephant keeper. The police records aren't digitized (https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C1257682 https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C1257682), but the "Murder Mile Podcast" seems to have done a fairly complete episode on this case, transcript here: https://www.murdermiletours.com/blog/murder-mile-uk-true-crime-podcast-172-the-sacred-one https://www.murdermiletours.com/blog/murder-mile-uk-true-cri...
- zabzonk 2y agoSo long as it is not Dunwich.