Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Aus.) usu. in left-wing press, a pro-conscriptionist, thus any self-avowed ‘patriot’ who is not burdened with the threat of actual fighting .

1916		Co-operator (Sydney) 26 Oct.) 5/7: Over ninety members of the staff of the Sydney University [...] have signed a manifesto urging Australians to vote ‘Yes.’ [...] The others are ‘would to Godders’.
1916		Aus. Worker (Sydney) 16 Nov. : Drivellers, sending the last of our best / [...] / ‘Would-to-Godders’ who cannot fight.
1916		Labor Call (Melbourne) 14 Dec. 5/1: The writer of that is probably some over-age ‘See-it-througher’ or ‘Would-to-Godder’ who dodged in past periods of war his ‘plain duty to the country’.
1917		Worker (Brisbane) 31 May 11/3: The real extremists, the whole-hoggers, are [...] the Conscriptionists, the See It-Throughers, the War-to-the-Knifers, the Would-to-Godders. They are the female furies and the male maniacs who would drive every eligible man [...] into the shambles.
1918		Dly Standard (Brisbane) 19 Apr. 4/7: [headline] WOULD-TO-GODDERS / FOR THE FIRING LINE / CHANCE FOR LOCAL FLAG FLAPPERS.
1918		Truth (Melbourne) 8 June 1/2: The wowsers, Would-to-Godders, and such-like cranks are [...] conveying the impression that everyone ought to go about in sack-cloth and ashes while the war is on.
1926		Westralian Worker (Perth) 23 Apr. 8/6: [T]he ‘Would-to-Godders’ of the safe from military ser ice age howled like dingoes with empty stomachs for the young men to be forced' to plunge into the hor ror. One of their parrot cries was ‘Would to God I was a young man’.
1931		Labor Call (Melbourne) 15 Jan. 9/4: [T]he flag-flapping loyalists of war time have disappeared. Where are the ‘Would-to-Godders’ and other war maniacs who sooled on these poor misguided men?