He studied for the ministry at Cuddesdon College and was ordained priest in 1908. Returning to work with the poor at Oxford House, in 1910 he suffered the first of what would prove to be recurrent breakdowns due to overwork. With the onset of war, Sheppard spent some months as chaplain to a military hospital in France, before being sent home with exhaustion. He had joined the Chaplaincy soon after War was declared. Bishop Gwynne,who would become Deputy Chaplain-General on the Western Front,wrote of Sheppard, 'He is a man of real magnetic power and has left his living of St Martin's-in-the-Fields to come out with the Australian hospital'. Sheppard wrote to Lang of his experiences, 'I've sat in a dugout expecting the Germans at any moment all through one night. I've held a leg and several other limbs while the surgeon amputated them. I've fought a drunken Tommy and protected several German prisoners from a French mob. I've missed a thousand opportunities and lived through a life's experience in five weeks' Sheppard had a breakdown which resulted from this experience, and these few weeks in France affected his view of warfare. Supported by Lang, he returned to the fashionable and high-profile living at St Martin-in-the-Fields, turning the church into an accessible social centre for all those in need. He married Alison Lennox, who had nursed him during his breakdowns, in 1915. From 1924, when Sheppard provided the first service ever broadcast by the BBC, his broadcast sermons gave him national fame. However, another breakdown and acute asthma led to his resignation in 1926. Having become a pacifist, he articulated a vision of a non-institutional church inThe Impatience of a Parson. Sheppard was partly responsible for the annual Festival of Remembrance that takes place in the Albert Hall, London on the first Saturday in November before Remembrance Sunday. In November 1925 he wrote to The Times protesting against a proposed Charity Ball on Armistice Day. Following a nationwide response a solemn ceremony In Memory replaced the Ball. Such was its resonance with the public that it became an annual event that continues to this day. Lang, appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 1928, supported the appointment of Sheppard as Dean of Canterbury in 1929. Although his preaching attracted huge audiences, illness once again forced resignation in 1931.
After resignation
Trying to develop a public political platform for pacifism, with Herbert Gray and Maude Royden, Sheppard proposed in 1931 a Peace Army of unarmed peacemakers to stand between the Chinese and Japanese armies in Shanghai. More successfully, he issued a call for "peace pledges" in 1934. He published We Say 'No' and formally established the Peace Pledge Union in 1936. In 1937 – the year of his death aged 57 – his wife left him and students elected him Rector of Glasgow University.
Death and legacy
Sheppard died at home in Paternoster Row and his funeral in St Paul's Cathedral drew huge crowds. He is buried in the cloisters at Canterbury Cathedral. The character of the priest Robert Carbury in Vera Brittain's novel Born 1925 is based on Sheppard.
