An impressive clergyman

 Studdert Kennedy

There was a time when, to be an impressive clergyman, it helped to have an impressive name. 

To walk from the vestry into the sanctuary in my former church, one strode through a gallery of photographs of my predecessors.  Day after day I would walk under the gaze of the founder of the church, The Rev Augustus Jones, with his Edwardian lamb-chop whiskers.  

Not far from him was The Rev William Thimble Thorpe. Although Mr Thorpe did not sport whiskers, you would have to admit that his name is deeply impressive. Sadly, 60 years after he resigned his ministry, the old greybeards in the church still shook their heads on the rare occasion his name was mentioned.  It turned out that Mr Thimble Thorpe had left under something of a cloud. There were dark mutterings that he had allowed his wife to take paid employment…

My sister’s researches into our own family tree have revealed a remarkably impressively-named clergyman, three generations removed from us: The Rev Theodore Theophilus Pitcher.  In giving him such a God-centred pair of Christian names (God’s gift + friend of God), were The Rev Theo’s parents giving him, from birth, an ever-so-gentle steer towards his eventual vocation?  We may never know.

Some impressive clergymen of the past didn’t always need to be named: their titles were enough.  Throughout my time as a minister I have kept a large grainy photograph of The Rector of Stiffkey above my desk. This has served as a reminder of what happens when a minister goes wrong. He also has a rather fun, rakish stare. Google him – his tale will repay the effort – and spare a prayer for ministers, that they may not end their careers defrocked and killed by a lion in Skegness, as he was.

Anyways, all this is but an introduction to another impressively named, and much more admirable, clergyman of the past who in this anniversary year of the beginning for WW1 ought to be better remembered today. The Rev Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy was an 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. 

The Rev Studdert Kennedy was awarded the Military Cross during World War I. The citation reads: “For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He showed the greatest courage and disregard for his own safety in attending to the wounded under heavy fire. He searched shell holes for our own and enemy wounded, assisting them to the dressing station, and his cheerfulness and endurance had a splendid effect upon all ranks in the front line trenches, which he constantly visited.”

Having been rather gung-ho about the war at its outset, he became a Christian socialist and pacifist as a result of his wartime experiences and, on return to civilian life, wrote a great deal about democracy and the problems of unregulated capitalism and greed.  He finished his career as an industrial chaplain, campaigning for the rights of working people and offering them in the workplace the same selfless spiritual aid that he had given to comrade and enemy alike in no-man’s land.

Which, it seems to me, is pretty impressive.