Grenfell of Labrador: A Biography

When the 23-year-old British doctor Wilfred Grenfell first set foot in Newfoundland in 1892, bent upon serving migrant fishermen, he had no clear idea who his patients were or how they lived. But his first few weeks on the Labrador coast changed all that. Moved by the natural beauty and the lack of the most elementary comforts, he was seized by a desire for reform and devoted the rest of his life to the task. At first an evangelical missionary of the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, Grenfell would become the instrument of philanthropic movements on both sides of the Atlantic and a beloved symbol of unselfish service. After raising funds in Canada and the United States, he founded a network of hospitals, nursing stations, schools, and home industries that exists in a modified form to this day. In 1908, after surviving a night marooned on a drifting patch of ice, he was further transformed into a popular hero and one of the most successful lecturers of his time. Ronald Rompkey carefully documents Grenfell’s manly education, his Anglo-Saxonism, and his devotion to broader issues of hygiene and public health. He also brings into the picture the contributions of Lady Grenfell and the officers of the Grenfell Mission. Above all, Rompkey views Grenfell not as a doctor or as a missionary but as a cultural politician who intervened in a colonial culture. He provides a vivid picture of the man himself and the social movements through which he worked.