George Grenfell

George Grenfell (1849–1906) was an Cornish missionary and explorer. Grenfell was born at Sancreed, near Penzance, Cornwall. In 1875 he went as a Baptist missionary to Cameroon, West Africa, with Alfred Saker, and thereafter did some exceedingly important work in exploring little-known rivers of the Congo Basin. In 1877 he removed to Victoria and explored the Wuri River and in the following year he ascended Mongo ma Loba Mountain. In 1881, cooperating with the Rev. T. 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 the Congo to the equator. He established headquarters at Arthington, near Leopoldville, in 1884, and launched on Stanley Pool a river steam vessel, the Peace, in which he explored the Kiva, the Kwango, and the Kasai rivers, discovered the Ruki, or Black River, and ascended the Mubangi for 200 miles (320 km) to Grenfell Falls, at lat. 4° 40' N. In 1885 he explored with Curt von François other tributaries of the Congo, notably the Busira, along which he found the dwarf tribes of the Batwa. In the following year he examined the Kasai, the Sankuru, and the Luebo and Lulua, and made careful records of the Bakuba and Bakete tribes. He was awarded the medal of the Royal Geographical Society for his map of the Congo Basin. In 1891 he was appointed a plenipotentiary for Belgium to delimit the boundary line between the Belgian and Portuguese possessions along the Luanda frontier. He protested to King Leopold against Belgian maladministration in the Congo Free State, but with little effect.