DR. GRENFELL OF LABRADOR.* THE famous doctor who has devoted
himself for a generation past to caring for the poor fisher-folk of Labrador and Northern Newfoundland has written a profoundly interesting autobio- graphy. Dr. Grenfell is one of those modest and resolute men who appeal to the best instincts of our race. He has found warm admirers and supporters not only in this country and in Newfoundland and Canada, but also in the United States. He is, so far as we know, the only Englishman for whom special societies have been formed in America, on the model of those which supported Admiral Peary. There are at least two Grenfell Associations in America, forming part of the International Grenfell Association, which supplies funds for the missions. But though the author has become a British-American institution, there is nothing dull or pompous about his book. His father was a clerical schoolmaster at Parkgate, Cheshire, where Dr. Grenfell was born in 1865, and where he learned the delights of wild-fowling in a punt on the treacherous waters of the Dee. He went to Marlborough in 1879, and has some pleasant reminis- cences of his old school, though his American printer makes him speak of the river " Kenneth." Beer was served at dinner in those days, under the name of " surges," he tells us. The printer again puts him wrong, as every Marlburian knows that the word is "swipes." When a house match was to be played after dinner, a card was passed round, " No holly to-day "—" holly " being a particularly substantial suet pudding. In 1883 Dr. Grenfell entered the London Hospital, to which his father had been appointed chaplain. He devoted himself at first to football and rowing, but a casual visit to one of Dr. D. L. Moody's meetings, followed by a meeting which the brothers Studd addressed, changed the course of his life. He began forthwith, in his leisure hours, to civilize some of the wild lads of the East End, teaching them boxing and gymnastics and taking them to holiday camps in North Wales. The present Bishops of London and Durham were then hard at work in the East End slums, where Oxford House had been established, but boys' clubs were in their infancy. When Dr. Grenfell had qualified as a medical man, he went, at the instance of Sir Frederick Treves, for an experimental trip in the little vessel of the Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen. He became intensely interested in this work, which took him all over the North Sea and into Irish waters. In 1891 the Mission was asked to do something for the deep-sea fishermen of Newfoundland and the Banks. Dr. Grenfell was deputed to go and inquire into the matter, and in the spring of 1892 he sailed in a small ketch across the Atlantic to Labrador.
A short cruise up the picturesque coast convinced him that • 4 Labrador Doctor : the Autobiography of Wilfred Thomas Grenfell. leaden; Hodder and Stoughton. Ube. set.] there was much to be done both for the fishermen at sea and for the poor people on land. There were Moravian missions to the Eskimo in the far north, but these had no doctors. The British colonists who form the bulk of the scattered population had neither spiritual nor medical help, and many of them were sunk in hopeless poverty. Dr. Grenfell returned to Labrador in 1893 to establish two cottage hospitals at Battle Harbour and Indian Harbour. The work grew rapidly, until in 1899 he decided to give his whole time to it. He wintered at St. Anthony in Northern Newfoundland—a place which is so cold that some Lapps imported to tend reindeer declined to stay there—and travelled about by dog-sledge to his many patients. He built a hospital at St. Anthony a year or two later, and made it his home after his marriage to an American lady in 1909. He soon found that medical relief alone was insufficient. If a fisherman fell ill or was unlucky, he and his family starved, Even those who could earn a bare living were at the mercy of the traders, who allowed them to contract debts which they could not repay, and then bought their fish and furs at very low prices. Dr. Grenfell tried to remedy these evils by setting up co-operative stores and by assisting the destitute with food and clothing. He established an orphanage for fishermen's children. At St. Anthony he went further and founded an unsectarian school. He explains that denominational rivalries in Newfoundland lead in the remoter districts to the parcelling out of exiguous grants to the several religious bodies, with the result that not one of them can support efficient schools. His own institution appears to have done well, and the more promis- ing pupils have completed their education in America. His attempt to acclimatise reindeer in Newfoundland was not a success, because the inhabitants killed them ; moreover, there was not room in the country for both the reindeer and the very savage dogs which are used for sledging. He was more for- tunate, with the help of friends, in setting up a saw-mill which gives work to some of the poor people south of St. Anthony. As the years have gone by, these very practical missions have covered more and more ground in Labrador and Northern Newfoundland, and have alleviated the misery and destitution which Dr. Grenfell found there thirty years ago. " The in- dustrial mission, the educational mission and the orphanage work at least rank with and should go hand in hand with hospitals in any true interpretation of a gospel of love."
Dr. Grenfell has not only had to do the work, cruising up and down the long coast in the hospital steamer or making perilous journeys over the ice in winter. He has also had to undertake lecturing tours in America or in Great Britain to raise money for the mission. It would be difficult to overestimate the good that this brave and devoted man has done in the little-known corner of the Empire to which he has given his life. He evi- dently loves the wild scenery and the unending solitudes of Labrador, but he cannot say too much for its kindly and courageous people. British fishermen are the same on both sides of the Atlantic. They are very conservative and super- stitious, but they are generous and have no fear of dangers which they understand. Dr. Grenfell mentions a poor fisherman in Labrador who had given a home to an adopted son and his three motherless children, and also to a bedridden old man and his blind wife, who were entirely without means. He found himself " standing in speechless admiration of this man," as well he might. The author suggests that the Quebec and Newfound- land Governments might do more for their respective portions of Labrador, but 'we cannot help thinking that the Grenfell Missions can help the people far more effectively than any department in Quebec or St. John's. Moreover, it is well that the English-speaking peoples should be co-operating in this common work of charity, apart from any political considerations. Dr. Grenfell's statement of his religious views in a closing chapter is characteristically simple. It is undeniable that if all Christians realized their duty to their neighbours as fully as he does, the world would soon be a happier place.
Previous page
