Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy (1883–1929) was the Anglican priest who gained the greatest fame for his service as a military chaplain during the First World War. In 1918, he published Rough Rhymes of a Padre under his nom de guerre, ‘Woodbine Willie’, and he has also been known by that alternative name ever since. While there is no need to adjudicate these kind of exact rankings, Studdert Kennedy has received his fair share of claims to being at or near the top in various categories. His first biography asserted in 1962 that he was ‘the most celebrated army padre of all time’. Stuart Bell has recently judged that he was ‘almost certainly the most widely known British chaplain of the First World War’. Claude M. Blagden, who was bishop of Peterborough during his final years, recollected that in the 1920s Studdert Kennedy had been ‘the best- known clergyman in the Church of England’. A 2013 biography is yet more sweeping: ‘Given his combination of a public speaker who drew in the crowds and an author whose books were constantly reprinted, he was unmatched not only by any other clerical figure but also by any political one in the 1920s.’ Because he is in the Church of England calendar, Studdert Kennedy has also been identified as a modern Anglican ‘saint’.

Studdert Kennedy has continued to receive a lively amount of attention in the twenty- first century, including two academic biographies, an anthology and a collection of essays inspired by his life and convictions. Three of those four books have the word ‘war’ in their title, and it is certainly the case that interest in Studdert Kennedy has been focused primarily on his military service and his writings, thoughts and sayings about war and peace.