William Maitland Woods

After evacuation to Egypt, Woods was appointed to the staff of Major General Harry Chauvel's ANZAC Mounted Division in July 1916, as Senior Chaplain.

Despite his advancing age, he spent long months camped in the desert with the troops, as the campaign in defence of the Suez Canal unfolded, and the Sinai Peninsula and Palestine were retaken.

Woods wrote from various locations: Gallipoli, Lemnos, Cairo, Ma'adi, Port Said, and other Australian Light Horse camp sites in Egypt, Palestine and on the Sinai Peninsula around the Suez Canal.

In the letters he described daily life and conditions in the trenches, the dust, heat and illness, and often expressed admiration for the immense bravery, physical strength and unflappably positive attitude of the Australian soldiers in his care.

[2] As an enthusiastic amateur archaeologist, Woods also wrote to Garland about objects which he and the men found – coins, relics, and most significantly, the Shellal Mosaic.

Discovered by troops on 17 April 1917 during the Second Battle of Gaza, this mosaic was eventually shipped to Australia bound for the Australian War Memorial, and Woods was responsible for overseeing its excavation and transportation.

In keeping with his religious and historical interests, he often gave informal lectures to the troops about different aspects of the Holy Land, and reported the success of these small ventures to Garland.

He immediately sailed to join his wife in Fiji where she had nursed during the war, then onto Hawaii, where Woods became the Headmaster of Iolani College for a year, then rector of St Clement's Episcopal Church from 1923.