The Pickle Manufacturer turned Islamic Warlord King

He was an English pickle manufacturer and philanthropist, who in his later life converted to Islam. During the Chinese Warlord era in the 20th Century he was declared King of Islamestan. This is the story of Bertie Sheldrake.

Sheldrake was born into a Roman Catholic family in London in the late 1880s, the son of a condiment manufacturer called Gosling. While a teenager, Bertie changed his name to Khalid and converted to Islam.

In the 1920s, Sheldrake had a series of literary successes, founding the journals “Britain and India” and the “Muslim news journal”. He also received an honorary doctorate of literature from a college in Ecuador.

Sheldrake founded several mosques throughout London, as well as the Western Islamic Association. He married a lady called Sybil, who also converted to Islam and changed her name to Ghazia. They lived in London, and he continued working at the pickle factory.

Sheldrake spent much time converting people to Islam. In 1932, aboard an Imperial Airlines charter flight, he converted Gladys Milton Palmer, son of a biscuit magnate and member of the ruling dynasty of Sarawak in northeast Borneo.

Soon, his own kingdom was to come into being. In the early 1930s, a series of rebellions among the mostly Muslim population of Xinjiang deprived the local governor, who had pledged allegiance to the People’s Republic of China, of control of the region. 

This resulted in several short-lived Islamic states being created in the region, including the First East Turkestan Republic (ETR), which sought international recognition but was not recognised by any major global powers at this time. They needed influential help.

An ETR delegation travelled to London to stay with Sheldrake, where they invited him to become overlord of “Sinkiang” in the hope he could promote the authenticity of the state. He agreed, and soon after Sheldrake left for China.

En route, he visited Muslim communities in the Philippines, Borneo, Sarawak, and Singapore to gather support, and in Hong Kong he gave a series of lectures on Islam. In Beijing, he was proclaimed His Majesty King Khalid of Islamestan.

Among rumours that Sheldrake was simultaneously a British spy and someone who wanted to steal Xinjiang’s jade deposits, “the Pickle King of Tartary” never managed to establish Islamestan as a true and recognised state.