With Anzac Day in just two days’ time, the following article gives an insight into the life of a military chaplain and the horsemen who served in the Middle East.
Our image shows Chaplain Captain William Maitland Woods posing with a walking stick on December 20, 1915 in the Middle East. While there, he took many black and white photographs.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
He was a Captain Chaplain 4th class Church of England and Honorary 2nd class Chaplain with the Desert Mounted Corps Headquarters. He travelled with the Australian Light Horse troops to various camp sites in Egypt, Palestine and on the Sinai Peninsula around the Suez Canal. Like the men, he had to put up with the dust, heat and illness.
Maitland Woods was born on January 4, 1864 in Mayfair, London and became an Anglican clergyman before coming to Australia. His father, Alfred Woods, was a draper. His mother, Jane (nee Damerel), was keen for him to receive a good education, so he first attended the City of London School, followed by a time at St Mary Hall in Oxford, where he graduated with a BA in 1889.
In the same year, he was made a deacon and dispatched to Queensland to be curate of St James’s Pro-Cathedral in Townsville. He was sent to Thursday Island in 1890, where he was appointed curate-in-charge. On April 11, 1892, he was ordained as a priest.
He joined the Australian Army Chaplains Department on July 1, 1915, receiving a transfer to the Australian Imperial Force on August 9, 1915. Two months later, he was at Gallipoli, attached briefly to the 2nd Brigade, then to the 7th Light Horse Regiment, with which he remained after the evacuation in December back to Egypt and the Holy Land. He was appointed Senior Chaplain on July 31, 1916 and was sent to join the staff of Major General Harry Chauvel’s Anzac Mounted Division in September.
Chaplain Captain Woods sailed to the Middle East on the A54 Troopship Runic under Captain Kearney, who he knew. Troopships usually contained officers and men and could have reinforcements for both infantry battalions and light horse regiments. Leaving Sydney, the vessel sailed on to Port Phillip Bay and docked at Melbourne to take on Victorian troops.
The troops and horses boarded at the Town Pier, Port Melbourne. The horses were off-saddled and loaded aboard. About 600 horses took around five hours to load.
Concerts, singing competitions, boxing tournaments and other games were organised to keep the horsemen active and amused. Rifle inspection was held on board each morning.
The island of Ceylon was the first land sighted and ships sailed inside the breakwater of Colombo harbour. Coal barges came alongside. It could take 24 hours to re-coal.
Pilot boats brought pilot on board to take troopships into Suez Harbour, which were soon surrounded by all kinds of boats of native hawkers, selling goods and souvenirs. Then the southern coast of India was sighted and as the ship drew closer, coastal villages and mountains could be seen.
Calmer seas were then experienced in the Bay of Bengal. Later, Chaplain Captain Woods could see the south coast of Arabia and, within a day, the Port of Aden. Leaving Aden, he later entered the Red Sea, where land could be seen on both sides.
They passed the Twelve Apostles Islands and, several days later, the town of Suez came into sight. The men disembarked at Port Suez, boarded a train for the journey to Heliopolis, and marched from there out to the Mena Camp.
Chaplain Captain Woods was described as bespectacled and balding, with prominent brows and gentle features. He was also described as “brilliant and witty”.
He returned to Australia on February 18, 1919 and his AIF appointment terminated on June 16, 1919. He immediately sailed to join his wife in Fiji, where she had nursed during the war. He died in 1927.
