Grenfell, Wilfred Thomason, Sir, 1865-1940 : Sir Wilfred Thomason Grenfell was born at Parkgate, England on 28 Feb. 1865. Grenfell entered the London Medical School in 1883. During his medical training, he was converted to active Christianity by the American evangelist Dwight L. Moody. In 1888 he joined the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen (RNMDSF) which served the physical and spiritual needs of British fishermen. He became superintendent in 1889. In 1892 he went to the Newfoundland and Labrador coast where he was appalled by the medical and living conditions of fishermen, settlers and Inuit. Grenfell decided that he would devote himself to medical and missionary work there. He raised funds to open the first hospital at Battle Harbour in 1893.
Money from RNMDSF was not enough to finance his growing chain of facilities, so Grenfell started speaking tours where he described the living conditions of Newfoundland and Labrador and what was being done to improve them. However growing friction with the mission eventually led to a split, and the International Grenfell Association was incorporated in 1912. By the 1920s Grenfell had raised funds and helped build six hospitals, seven nursing stations, four hospital ships, an orphanage as well as training and clothing distribution centres, cooperatives and other facilities. The headquarters for this network was at St. Anthony NL.
Grenfell also began writing books about Newfoundland and Labrador and his work there. His main financial support came from the US. In 1909 he married Anne MacClanahan, a Chicago heiress, who had an important influence on his subsequent life. The practical medical work of the IGA was carried on by other doctors, while Grenfell became increasingly involved in fund raising. He became a CMG in 1906 and a KCMG in 1927. Grenfell resigned from the International Grenfell Association in 1935 and retired to Vermont. Grenfell died at Charlotte, VT on 9 Oct. 1940.
Grenfell was the author of numerous books including "Vikings of Today or Life and Medicine among the Fishermen of Labrador" (1895), "A Drift on an Ice Pan" (1909), "Labrador Days: Tales of the Sea Toilers" (1919), " Labrador Doctor" (1919) republished as "Forty Years for the Labrador" (1932), "What Christ Means to Me" (1927) and "The Romance of Labrador" (1934). Grenfell's papers are in the Yale University Archives.
