Woodbine Willie, chaplain who handed out a million cigs as WW1 troops lay dying
AMID the carnage of the trenches, he offered spiritual and practical succour to injured and dying troops.
And at a time when an estimated 96 per cent of soldiers smoked, one of the ways the Reverend Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy helped them was to hand out cigarettes.
The British Army chaplain’s generosity in giving Woodbines to men on the front line to boost morale earned him the nickname ‘Woodbine Willie’.
Records also show that he regularly ventured – unarmed – into No Man’s Land, often under heavy machine gun and artillery fire, to give dying troops one last cigarette.
Clutching his Bible for protection, the ‘Battlefield Saint’ would whisper the Lord’s Prayer and hold their hands until the end.
Studdert Kennedy’s selfless bravery during the First World War, particularly at the Battle of Messines, earned him a Military Cross.
Now his biographer has calculated that he spent most of his wartime wages handing out nearly one million cigarettes to Allied troops, returning home virtually penniless.
Dr Linda Parker said he sacrificed his family’s financial future to safeguard the emotional wellbeing of the men in his care.
‘Studdert Kennedy was one of the First World War’s true heroes – a courageous and selfless Christian who gave away everything he had for the benefit of others,’ she said.
‘With the exception of his family’s annual living expenses, he spent the rest of his salary – his family’s entire income, really – on the men he took under his spiritual wing. He did, in almost complete certainty, spend virtually everything he owned. He filled his backpack with Woodbines, Bibles and a great deal of love.’
Troops were issued with two ounces of cheap rolling tobacco with their rations, but supply was irregular. Woodbines, which were strong and unfiltered, were not widely available on
the Western Front and were like gold dust in the trenches.
Dr Parker – the author of A Seeker After Truths: The Life and Times of G A Studdert Kennedy (‘Woodbine Willie’) 18831929 – estimates he gave away 864,980 cigarettes at his own expense. She reached the figure by calculating the total number of men Studdert Kennedy is likely to have met between December 1915 and September 1918, the smoking rate among troops at the time, and his propensity to offer one or more cigarettes to ‘every man he met’.
She believes that over the course of nearly three years, he spent the equivalent of £43,249 in today’s money – every spare penny of his Army salary. This is based on a packet of five Woodbines costing 1d, which equals 25p today. His grandson, the Reverend Canon Andrew StuddertKennedy, team rector in Marlborough, Wiltshire, and an honorary chaplain to the Queen, agrees with Dr Parker’s findings.
‘Anecdotes about my grandfather’s generosity are part of the annals,’ he said. ‘My grandmother allegedly came home one day to find him dragging their mattress downstairs to give to someone in need, and another time he gave his coat away.
‘I’ve no doubt whatsoever that he did everything within his financial means to help those men on the front line.’
Before the war, Studdert Kennedy served as a vicar in a poor parish in Worcester. When war was declared against Germany he enlisted as a temporary chaplain.
In December 1915, he was stationed at a railway station in Rouen, France, where he held communion with the troops, wrote letters for the illiterate, and prayed with young soldiers. When they left for the front line, he gave them copies of the New Testament and, to the 96 per cent of soldiers who smoked, one or more Woodbines.
News of Studdert Kennedy’s kindness and generosity spread, and by early 1916 he was known as ‘Woodbine Willie’.
His fame spread further when he was sent to the trenches of the Somme, Ypres and Messines. He routinely prayed with dying soldiers and was awarded the Military Cross after running through ‘murderous machine gun fire’ at Messines Ridge to deliver morphine to men screaming in agony in No Man’s Land. He was gassed at the Battle of the Canal du Nord in 1918 and sent home on sick leave.
After the Great War, Studdert Kennedy became a pacifist, social reformer, author and poet. He was also made personal chaplain to King George V. When he died in 1929 aged 45, ex- servicemen sent a wreath with a packet of Woodbines at the centre to his funeral in Worcester.
‘He spent virtually everything he owned’