Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, Priest, Poet

8 March -- Commemoration
If celebrated as a Lesser Festival, Common of Pastors, page 483

Born in 1883, Studdert Kennedy was a young vicar in Worcester who became an army chaplain during the First World War. His warm personality soon earned the respect of soldiers, who nicknamed him 'Woodbine Willie' after the brand of cigarettes he shared with them. After the First World War, he became a writer and regular preacher, drawing large crowds, who were attracted by his combination of traditional sacramental theology with more unconventional theological views. He worked tirelessly for the Christian Industrial Fellowship, but his frail health gave way and he died (still a young man) on this day in 1929.