Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy was an English Anglican priest and poet. He was nicknamed Woodbine Willie during World War I for giving Woodbine cigarettes along with spiritual aid to injured and dying soldiers.
On the outbreak of World War I, Studdert Kennedy volunteered as a chaplain to the army on the Western Front, where he gained the nicknameWoodbine Willie. In 1917, he was awarded the Military Cross at Messines Ridge after running into no man's land to help the wounded during an attack on the German frontline. During the war he supported the British military effort with enthusiasm. Attached to a bayonet-training service, chaplain Kennedy toured with boxers and wrestlers to give morale-boosting speeches about the usefulness of the bayonet. One of his inspirational speeches is vividly described by A S Bullock as 'the most extraordinary talk I ever heard'. Bullock notes that the listeners 'were a very rough, tough lot, but they sat spellbound', and quotes a section of the speech, at the end of which 'everybody sprang to their feet and cheered him to the echo'. He wrote a number of poems about his experiences, and these appeared in the books Rough Rhymes of a Padre, and More Rough Rhymes. His collected works were published under the title The Unutterable Beauty.
Later life
After the war, Studdert Kennedy was given charge of St Edmund, King and Martyr in Lombard Street, London. Having been converted to Christian socialism and pacifism during the war, he wrote Lies, Democracy and the Dog-Collar , Food for the Fed Up, The Wicket Gate, and The Word and the Work. He moved to work for the Industrial Christian Fellowship, for whom he went on speaking tours of Britain. His appointment as missioner for ICF released him from routine clerical duties to become an outspoken advocate for the working classes. One of his celebrated quotes was: "If finding God in our churches leads to us losing Him in our factories, then better we tear down those churches for God must hate the sight of them." It was on one of these tours that he was taken ill. He died in Liverpool on 8 March 1929, exhausted at the age of 45. His funeral took place in Worcester, to which poor working people flocked to pay their respects. The Dean of Westminster refused burial at Westminster Abbey, because he said Studdert Kennedy was a "socialist", even though he had distrusted most politicians and had refused to join any political party.
He wrote the poem Roses in December, which J.M. Barrie quoted in his rectorial address to the University of St. Andrews entitled Courage in 1922, and often misattributed to Barrie. War! Lies! And a Packet of Fags! is a play by David Gooderson about the Great War and its aftermath—the story of "Woodbine Willie". The play is based on extensive research into the life of Studdert Kennedy, including meetings with members of his family, and a detailed study of the background of the period. He is mentioned in the Divine Comedy song "Absent Friends": "Woodbine Willie couldn't rest until he'd/given every bloke a final smoke/before the killing," and in Finnegans Wake by Irish author James Joyce: "tsingirillies' zyngarettes, while Woodbine Willie, so popiular with the poppyrossies". VenerableArchbishop Fulton J. Sheen quoted Studdert Kennedy's 1918 poem "Indifference" when Sheen spoke publicly about the need for enthusiasm in all of one's life. Studdert Kennedy "wrote this poem during what was called ‘the great disillusion’ of the 1920’s". Sheen's point was that the "world is suffering from indifference" as "apathy, not caring." Sheen noted that he wondered if Jesus Christ "did not suffer more from our indifference than he did from the crucifixion." To make his point he recited Studdert Kennedy's poem "Indifference."
Works
by G.A. Studdert Kennedy, edited and introduced by Kerry Walters, Lutterworth Press, 2008.
Diggory Press,
First published as Food for the Fed-up.
by "Woodbine Willie" Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy, reproduced by Forgotten Books, Kessinger Publishing, LLC, 2010.
