Grenfell on Stamps of Newfoundland and Canada
by John Burnett (ESC1)
Originally published in Linns Stamp News
Sir Wilfred Grenfell is seen twice on 5¢ commemorative stamps issued north of the 49th parallel, both of them printed by the Canadian Bank Note Company. Figure 1 shows the first of these, a 5¢ stamp issued by Newfoundland to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Grenfell Mission December 1, 1941. The stamp shows Grenfell at what appears to be the crow's nest of a ship with a cross behind him. In the distance under sail, by one of those feats of philatelic legerdemain, is Grenfell's hospital ship, Strathcona II. Beyond it are ice bergs not uncommon to the cold waters of the North Atlantic Ocean.
Figure 1 - This 1941 5¢ stamp issued by Newfoundland commemorates coastal medical missionary Sir Wilfred Grenfell and depicts his hospital ship, Strathcona II under sail.
Collectors should note that in 1941 Newfoundland was not a province of Canada but still a colony of Great Britain. In fact, at that time Newfoundland was Britain's oldest colony. Eight years after this stamp was issued Newfoundland joined the confederation and became Canada's newest province. The stamp pictured in Figure 1 is Scott and Canada Specialized 252.
On June 9, 1965, Canada commemorated the centenary of Grenfell's birth with another stamp (Scott and Canada Specialized 438). The stamp shows Grenfell at the wheel of the Strathcona II again with ice bergs in the background. The Canadian Bank Note Company printed 26.6 million of these stamps, shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2 - Grenfell is at the wheel of the Stathcona II in this commemorative 5¢ stamp issued by Canada in 1965.
But what do we know of this man who was feted by two stamp issuing entities?
Wilfred Thomason Grenfell was born in Parkgate, England, February 28, 1865. While he was a student of London Medical College in 1885, Grenfell converted to a vigorous Christianity during a tent meeting conducted by American Evangelist Dwight L. Moody. In 1888 Grenfell joined the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, becoming Superintendent of that service the following year when he received his medical degree from Oxford University. For three months in 1892, Grenfell traveled the isolated Newfoundland and Labrador coasts, where 30,000 fishermen, sealers, and whalers, 3300 settlers and 1700 Inuit (Eskimo) had previously received only one visit a year from a single government doctor.
Most of the 35,000 souls were clustered in tiny coastal hamlets - Newfoundland's famous outports - like the one depicted on the cachet of the Grenfell first day cover shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3 - The cachet on this 1965 first-day cover depicts the kind of isolated coastal community that Grenfell's medical mission reached in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Although these villages seem rustic and picturesque to tourists on those occasions when the weather is warm and fair, the outports are remote, cold and forbidding for much of the year, cut off from the outside world and possessing only rudimentary first aid to cope with medical emergencies.
In the years that followed and operating from his headquarters in St. Anthony, Newfoundland, Grenfell used his talents as a speaker and writer to raise funds to construct hospitals, orphanages, and nursing stations up and down the coast. Most of the wherewithal came from benefactors on the east coast.
In 1909 Grenfell married Anne MacClanahan, an heiress from Chicago. Under her influence, Grenfell left the rigors of the Newfoundland and Labrador coasts and eventually split with the mission. Its work continued, however, as the International Grenfell Association, to which Grenfell leant his support as an active successful fund raiser while new generations of doctors carried on the medical work.
Recipient of many honors Grenfell retired to Vermont in 1927. Prior to his death there in 1940, he could reflect with satisfaction on a life spent alleviating human suffering. By then the organizations he had helped found were operating five hospitals, seven nursing stations and three orphanages.
As a general rule Canada will only issue one commemorative stamp for an individual. However, given all that Grenfell accomplished, especially for Newfoundland and its people, many people feel Grenfell earned the two stamps issued to honor his work.
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