Grenfell, Wilfred Thomason

(186 5 - 1940)

   pioneer British medical missionary

   Wilfred Thomason Grenfell was born on February 28, 1865, at Parkgate, Cheshire, England, the son of a clergyman in the Church of England. After graduating with a medical degree from the University of London, he affiliated with the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fisherman, a demonstration of the influence that evangelist Dwight L. Moody (1837-89) had made on his life.

   In 1892, Grenfell joined the crew of a hospital ship on its way to Labrador. The next year, he assembled his own medical team and left for Labrador and Newfoundland, where he spent the rest of his active life serving the medical and other needs of residents and fishermen.

   Grenfell wrote a number of books and gave lecture tours in England and North America. In 1912, he established the international Grenfell Association, headquartered in St. Anthony, Newfoundland. The association would be responsible for founding and maintaining a set of hospitals, orphanages, cooperative stores, and other facilities. He was knighted in 1927. He remained active until ill health forced his retirement in 1935. He lived his last years in vermont, where he died on october 9, 1940.

   See also medical missions.

   Further reading:

   ■ Wilfred Thomason Grenfell, Adrift on an Ice Pan (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1926)

   ■ ----, Forty Years for Labrador (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1932); , The Story of a Labrador Doctor. The Autobiography of Wilfred Thamason Grenfell (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1919)

   ■ Ronald Rompkey, Grenfell of Labrador: A Biography (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991).