84: Who Was "Woodbine Willie"?

The History Chap Podcast · Dec 12, 2023 · 10m

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“Woodbine Willie”, or to give him his real name, the Reverend Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy was a British Army chaplain in the First World War.

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He was one of those Christians who believed that the the church should not wait for people to come to it but should go out to the people.

And it was this belief that took him to the Western Front. There he quietly listened to the fears and worries of ordinary soldiers and shared his Woodbine cigarettes with them…gaining him the nickname: “Woodbine Willie”.

Loved by officers and…