Kennedy, Geoffrey Studdert

GEOFFREY STUDDERT KENNEDY

‘I know what you are thinking, here comes the bloody parson.' These were the opening words of Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, at a smoking concert held at St Pol in Northern France, for the men of the Fourth Army School and their guests, in 1917.

Throughout his life, Kennedy was to startle and annoy some of his listeners by such language, but for thousands of men and women of the day, he was the only man who could make God and Jesus Christ real. He had the unique gift of expressing the most profound truths in language that could be understood and appreciated by the simple and uneducated.

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Studdert Kennedy was born in 1883. He was the seventh son in the family which originated from Ireland. His father, at the time, was vicar of St Mary’s Quarry Hill in Leeds. From an early age, Kennedy was familiar with the desperate struggle for survival of his father's parishioners, who lived in cramped, damp housing. Drunkenness and violence were also familiar sights.

After a brief spell at teaching, he decided to be ordained and went to Ripon College in Oxford.

He was quickly noted for his vagueness, humility, warm heartedness and unconventional style of life. He was always generous to the poor, and his landlady had to take possession of his money and give him a daily allowance. His wife returned home one day to find that he had given away bedding and a metal bedstead. She was immediately involved in helping him to carry the mattress to the invalid who was the beneficiary of his generosity.

He was also a person who had doubts and was not afraid to admit it. He once wrote, 'Every man, whether Christian or not, must sooner or later stand at the last ditch, face to face with the final doubt. I know that last ditch well, I have stood in it many times’.

He once told a pious congregation, in a beautiful and ancient church, that he sometimes wanted to take a sledge hammer and smash every stained glass window in the church. He was much happier celebrating the Eucharist in a field with a cup and saucer. He once wrote, ‘Nobody worries about Christ as long as he can be kept shut up in churches. He is quite safe there. But there is always trouble if you try and let him out.'

As the First World War approached, he encouraged his able body parishioners to volunteer for military service. He, himself, set an example by offering himself as a chaplain.

Three times he served on the Front. His asthma was aggravated by the appalling conditions in which he found himself. He was gassed and nearly blown up by a stray shell. He once volunteered to go and get some morphine when the medical centre ran out. He dashed from shell hole to shell hole under constant bombardment. Having finally returned with the morphine, he then went out again to rescue three wounded soldiers. For this ‘conspicuous gallantry and dedication to duty’, he was awarded the Military Cross.

He once advised a new chaplain to ‘take a box of fags in your haversack and a great deal of love in your heart’. Kennedy himself was well known for his liberal distribution of cigarettes which earned him the nickname, 'Woodbine Willie’.

However, his belief in God was challenged by his experiences of the Great War. He once wrote, ‘When I went I believed that the war would end to the benefit of mankind. I believed that a better order was coming for the ordinary man, and God help me, I believe it still. But it is not through war that this order will be brought about. There are no fruits in victory, no such thing as victory in modern war. War is a universal disaster and as far I am concerned, I'm through.'

Upon discharge from the forces, he was appointed Chaplain to King George V. He also became involved in the Industrial Christian Fellowship, which sought to make the Christian faith relevant to an industrial society. He travelled far and wide, and it was while staying at a Vicarage in Liverpool that he died from influenza. He was only 46 years old. As his coffin was being taken across the River Mersey, a packet of Woodbine cigarettes was placed upon it.

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William Temple, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said of him at the time, 'He was the finest priest I have ever known’. And on another occasion he described Kennedy's contribution to the ministry as, 'one of God's greatest gifts to the Church.'

‘Woodbine Willie' is commemorated in the Anglican Church on the 8th March.