Wilfred Grenfell

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Sir Wilfred Thomason Grenfell (born February 28, 1865 in Parkgate on the Wirral peninsula, England , † October 9, 1940 in Charlotte , Vermont ) was a doctor and missionary . After studying medicine in London in 1892, he went to the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador , where he made a decisive contribution to the establishment of a modern health and social system through his lifelong work.

Life

Wilfred Grenfell
Grenfell Center in St. Anthony

Wilfred Grenfell was born in northwest England on February 28, 1865, to Algernon Grenfell, an Anglican priest, and Jane Grenfell, née Jane Grenfell. Hutchinson born. He attended Mostyn House School in his native Parkgate. After moving to London in 1882 , he began studying medicine at the London Hospital Medical School a year later and graduated six years later. In London in 1885 he came into contact with the teachings of the American evangelist Dwight Lyman Moody , who emphasized in his sermons, among other things, salvation through service to the poor in society. This had a great impact on Grenfell's religious beliefs and his entire subsequent life. In 1886 he converted from his parents' Anglicanism to the Protestant faith.

In 1892 he went to Newfoundland on behalf of the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen to set up a medical mission station there. A year later, this started operation with two other doctors and two nurses in two small hospitals in Battle Harbor and Indian Harbor, as well as mobile medical care by ship along the coast of Labrador. In the course of time, the activities of the mission expanded beyond medical care for the population to include the establishment of schools and orphanages as well as projects in the field of social work and the care of workers. From 1905 the Mission ran a mobile library donated by the American industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie . In addition to the local fishermen, the mission also looked after the local population and other settlers on the coast of Labrador and in northern Newfoundland. On November 18, 1909, Wilfred Grenfell married his wife, Anne Elizabeth Caldwell MacClanahan of Chicago . The marriage resulted in two sons and a daughter.

Due to the growth of the mission over the following decades, the International Grenfell Association was founded as a not-for-profit mission company on January 10, 1914 to support the work of Wilfred Grenfell. Since the financial needs exceeded the funds provided by the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, he raised additional donations through lecture tours in Canada, the USA and England, as well as through books and other publications. His works included both religious writings and landscape and travel descriptions about Newfoundland and Labrador as well as fiction stories, such as the work "Adrift on an Ice Pan" published in 1908. This was based on an experience in which he survived a night on a floating ice floe in 1908 .

During the First World War , he volunteered in the Royal Army Medical Corps from 1915 to 1916 . With the beginning of the 1920s, his health deteriorated. In 1926 he had a heart attack for the first time, followed by a second in 1929. In 1931 he took a trip to map the coast of Labrador. In 1935 he retired from the management of the Association, three years later his wife died. When he retired, there were six hospitals, seven nursing wards, two orphanages, two large schools and 14 commercial centers in Labrador as a result of his work. After his death on October 9, 1940 in the US state of Vermont, his remains were transferred to St. Anthony in Newfoundland and buried there on July 25, 1941.

Aftermath and memory

Wilfred Grenfell on a 1941 postage stamp
Grenfell Monument in St. Anthony
Grenfell Museum in St. Anthony

The International Grenfell Association existed after Wilfred Grenfell's death until 1981 as a non-governmental organization. Her health care responsibilities were then taken over by a government agency known as the Grenfell Regional Health Services Board . The International Grenfell Association then shifted its focus to promoting projects and training medical staff.

In 1978 the Sir Wilfred Thomason Grenfell Historical Society was founded, which acquired his house in St. Anthony on Newfoundland and Labrador and set up a museum and archive in it. The work of Wilfred Grenfell is considered to be the model for at least two characters in works of Canadian literature , on the one hand Dr. Luke in the 1904 book "Doctor Luke of the Labrador" by Norman Duncan and on the other hand Dr. Tocsin in Harold Horwood's book "White Eskimo", which appeared in 1972.

Wilfred Grenfell has received a number of high-level awards for his work, including the first ever honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford's Faculty of Medicine in 1907 . In the same year he was accepted as a companion in the Order of Saints Michael and George , an award for British citizens, which is bestowed for special services in work abroad or for improving relations with other countries. For his work on the mapping of Labrador he was honored by the Royal Geographical Society in 1911 with the Murchison Prize . In 1927 he was knighted in recognition of his achievements in medicine, education and social work .

The Memorial University of Newfoundland campus in Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador, has been called Sir Wilfred Grenfell College since 1979 . In addition, a Canadian Coast Guard search and rescue ship has been named after him since 1987. In 1997 he was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame .

literature

  • Grenfell, Wilfred Thomason. In: Gerald H. Anderson: Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions. Macmillan Reference USA, New York 1998, ISBN 0-8028-4680-7 , p. 261
  • Grenfell, Wilfred Thomason 1865-1940. In: William Toye: The Concise Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature. Oxford University Press, New York 2001, ISBN 0-19-541523-X , p. 187
  • Grenfell, Wilfred Thomason. In: J. Gordon Melton: Encyclopedia of Protestantism. Infobase Publishing, New York 2005, ISBN 0-8160-5456-8 , p. 252

Further publications

  • Wilfred Grenfell: A Labrador Doctor: The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell. Kessinger Publishing, Kila MT 2006, ISBN 1-4179-3616-9 (autobiography first published in 1919)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Grenfell, Wilfred
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Grenfell, Wilfred Thomason
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English doctor and missionary, founded the health system in Newfoundland and Labrador
DATE OF BIRTH February 28, 1865
PLACE OF BIRTH Parkgate on the Wirral Peninsula, England
DATE OF DEATH October 9, 1940
Place of death Charlotte , Vermont