George Grenfell | |
|---|---|
 Missionary and explorer in Africa | |
| Born | 21 August 1849 |
| Died | 1 July 1906(1906-07-01) (aged 56) |
| Spouse(s) | Mary Hawkes (1877†) Rosana Patience Edgerley (1855–1928) |
| Children | Seven children: Patience Elizabeth Grenfell, Caroline Mary Grenfell, Unknown child, Dorothy Grenfell, Gertrude Grenfell, Unknown child, Grace Isabel Grenfell Quallo |
George Grenfell (21 August 1849, in Sancreed, Cornwall – 1 July 1906, inBasoko,Congo Free State (now theDemocratic Republic of the Congo) was aCornishmissionary andexplorer.[1]
Grenfell was born atSancreed, nearPenzance,Cornwall. After the family moved to Birmingham he was educated at a branch of King Edward's school. Though his parents were Anglicans he soon joined Heneage Street Baptist Chapel, where he was admitted to membership by baptism on 7 Nov. 1864. He founded the Birmingham Young Men’s Baptist Missionary Society.[2]
After leaving school, he was apprenticed to a firm of hardware and machinery merchants.[3] Influenced by the likes ofDavid Livingstone, Grenfell's ambition was to become a missionary so in September 1873 he entered the Baptist College,Stokes Croft, Bristol. On 10 Nov. 1874 theBaptist Missionary Society accepted him for work in Africa.
In December 1874, he went as aBaptist missionary toCameroon, West Africa, withAlfred Saker (1814–80).[4]
He married Mary Hawkes from Heneage Street Baptist Chapel but she died in January 1877;[3] the following year he married his housekeeper Rose Edgerley and they had a daughter named Patience.
In 1877 he relocated toVictoria and explored theWouri River and in the following year he ascendedMongo ma Loba Mountain. From 1880 onwards he did some important work in exploring little-known rivers of theCongo Basin.
In 1881, cooperating with the RevThomas J. Comber and others, he established a chain of missions at Musuko,Vivi,Isangila,Manyanga, and other points, and in 1884, in a small steam vessel, he explored theCongo to theequator. He established headquarters atArthington, nearLeopoldville, in 1884, and launched onStanley Pool a river steam vessel, thePeace,[3] in which he explored theKivu, theKwango, and theKasai rivers, discovered theRuki, or Black River, and ascended theMubangi for 200 miles (320 km) toGrenfell Falls, at lat. 4° 40' N. In 1885 he explored withCurt von François other tributaries of the Congo, notably theBusira, along which he found PygmyBatwa peoples. In the following year he examined the Kasai, theSankuru, and theLuebo andLulua, and made careful records of theBakuba andBakete tribes. He was awarded in 1887 the Founder’s Medal[5] of theRoyal Geographical Society for his explorations in the Cameroons and Congo. In four years he had charted 3,400 miles (5,550km) of waterways.[5] In total, thePeace travelled 15,000 miles (over 24,000km).[6]
By 1888, he had buried four children, as well as Comber’s wife.[5]
In 1891 he was appointed aplenipotentiary for Belgium to delimit the boundary line between theBelgian andPortuguese possessions along the Luanda frontier. He was awarded the Medal of the Order of the Lion of Africa by King Leopold II.[7] In 1903 he protested toKing Leopold against consistent refusal of theCongo Free State authorities to countenance further Baptist advance beyondYakusu on the Upper Congo,[3] but with no effect.From 1893 to 1900 Grenfell remained chiefly atBolobo on the Congo, where a strong mission station was established. After a visit to England in 1900, he started for a systematic exploration of theAruwimi River[1] and by November 1902 had reachedMawambi, about eighty miles from the western extreme of theProtectorate of Uganda.
Between 1903 and 1906 Grenfell was busy with a new station atYalemba,[8] fifteen miles east of the confluence of the Aruwimi with the Congo.Meanwhile, he found difficulty in obtaining building sites from the Congo Free State, which accorded them freely to Roman Catholics. He grew convinced of Catholic favouritism in the Belgian administration, which he had previously trusted.[7] In 1903King Leopold despatched at Grenfell's entreaty a commission of inquiry, before which he gave evidence, but its report gave him little satisfaction. In 1904, Grenfell resigned from the Commission for the Protection of the Natives.[7] He died after a bad attack ofblackwater fever atBasoko on 1 July 1906.
A memorial tablet was unveiled in Heneage Street Baptist Chapel, Birmingham, on 24 September 1907. During major 1950s clearance of the area for redevelopment Heneage Street Baptist was closed. The tablet was recovered and was moved to a new Chapel in north-east Birmingham named in his honour.
His papers are held at theAngus Library and Archive at Oxford.[3]
{{cite encyclopedia}}:Missing or empty|title= (help)Missiology website,The life of George Grenfell, by George Hawker (1909), online copy
