Felix Powell

{{Short description|Welsh composer}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

{{Infobox musical artist

| name = Felix Powell

| image =

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| birth_name = Felix Lloyd Powell

| alias =

| birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1878|5|23}}

| birth_place = St Asaph, Wales

| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1942|2|10|1878|5|23}}

| death_place = Peacehaven, East Sussex, England

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| occupation = Composer

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| associated_acts = George Henry Powell

}}

Felix Lloyd Powell (23 May 1878 – 10 February 1942) was a Welsh British Army Staff Sergeant most famous for writing the music for marching song "Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag and Smile, Smile, Smile", in 1915, during World War I. The words were written by his brother George Henry Powell (under the pseudonym George Asaf), and the song was entered into a competition for "best morale-building song". It won first prize and was noted as "perhaps the most optimistic song ever written".{{cite web|url=http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/?lid=18283 |title=Pack Up Your Troubles | publisher = National Theatre |accessdate=22 October 2009}}

Powell later wrote a musical play, Rubicund Castle, which was staged at the Pavilion Theatre in Peacehaven. When a West End producer bought it he drastically altered it, leaving only the music unchanged, and renamed it Primrose Times. This version went unstaged after the latter was arrested and convicted for fraud.{{cite book|last=McKie|first=David|title=McKie's Gazetteer – A Local History of Britain|year=2008|publisher=Atlantic Books|page=419|isbn=978-1-84354-654-2}}Article on Peacehaven.

Powell committed suicide during World War II in 1942, aged 63. Wearing the uniform of the Peacehaven Home Guard, he shot himself in the heart while on guard duty, using his own rifle.{{cite web|url=http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/mcferrin.asp |title=Bobby McFerrin Suicide Rumor |date=3 November 2002 |publisher=snopes.com |accessdate=22 October 2009}}