Grenfell, Sir Wilfred Thomason, 1865–1940, English physician and missionary, famous for his work among Labrador fishermen. After serving as a missionary to fishermen of the North Sea, Dr. Grenfell went to Labrador in 1892. During more than 40 years of service there and in Newfoundland, he built hospitals and nursing stations, established cooperative stores, agricultural centers, schools, libraries, and orphanages, and opened the King George V Seamen's Institute in St. John's, N.L., in 1912. Grenfell cruised annually in the hospital steamer Strathcona II, keeping in touch with his centers of missionary work. Among his many books are his autobiography, Forty Years for Labrador (1932), and The Romance of Labrador (1934).
See biographies by J. Reason (1941), E. H. Hayes (1946), S. Z. Starr (1971), and J. L. Kerr (1959, repr. 1977).
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