Northern Victorian Convert - Manchester & Challenging the World

Robert Stanley was a respectable, northern working-class Victorian man who converted to Islam. But his family managed to keep his Muslim identity a secret - for nearly a century.

Robert grew up in the cradle of Britain’s Industrial Revolution and was part of the Christian Israelite sect. Self-educated, this grocer and tea-trader made it his mission to help northern working men bribed by rich factory owners during elections. He rose to become one of Britain’s first working-class magistrates and mayors, witnessing first-hand some of the most violent riots, radicalism and progressive reforms of the Victorian era.
Robert was committed to justice for all, even when his public challenges to an unfair British foreign policy caused troubles for him. In 1898 at the age of 69, he took the astonishing decision to convert to Islam, becoming close friend of famous convert - Abdullah Quilliam - Sheikh of Islam of the British Isles. He sold his pub, became Vice-Chair of the UK's first mosque in Liverpool and moved to Manchester.

After his death, his conversion was ‘hidden’ for nearly a century.
Always ‘His Own Man’, Robert ‘Reschid’ Stanley’s life and times are brought into the light for the first time – thanks to the painstaking family history research of his own descendants and through the words of his great x 3 granddaughter, Christina Longden.

‘Rooted in the past, deeply personal and shaping our present, His Own Man - The ‘Hidden’ Victorian Muslim Convert - is a necessary and timely read in the debate about identity and belonging’.
BARONESS SAYEEDA WARSI

‘His Own Man is an essential read for anyone interested in challenging preconceived ideas of Muslim and working-class community life. Chris Longden must be congratulated for writing this highly accessible biography; one which Robert Reschid Stanley would be deeply proud of.
This is a compelling socio-political portrait of one of the leading Victorian Muslims, based upon extensive archival research. This book provides a much-needed contribution towards a growing field of research on early Muslim convert communities during Victorian Britain’.
DR SHAMIM MIAH, Senior Lecturer, University of Huddersfield.

'This book by Christina Longden matters ... because it embraces all those vital concepts of history. An important and pioneering work, it highlights the need not for tolerance of each other’s beliefs but of acceptance: an acceptance that can only arise through the understanding the importance of our shared histories.
Herein lies the power of Christina Longden’s research, writing and passion: the celebration of that which we have in common – our humanity’.
PROFESSOR CARL CHINN, MBE, Ph.D.

For more information visit https://robertreschidstanley.wordpress.com/