GRENFELL, GEORGE (1849-1906), English Baptist mis sionary and explorer of the Congo, was born at Sancreed, near Penzance, on Aug. 21, 1849, and educated at Birmingham. After some years in a business firm, Grenfell entered the Baptist col lege, Bristol (1873), and in 1874 was sent by the Baptist mis sionary society to the Cameroons, with Alfred Saker, where for some years he explored the rivers inland. In Jan. 1878 he joined the Rev. T. J. Comber in exploring the Lower Congo. In 1884 he made an independent survey of the Congo up to the Equator, at a point 18° long. E. From 1884 to 1887 he made five further voyages in a river steamer, built under his own supervision, and the results of his journeys were published by the Royal Geo graphical Society (1886), from whom he received the founder's medal. In 1891 he acted as Belgian plenipotentiary in the Portu guese negotiations for the settlement of the frontier of the Lunda. In 1900 he began to explore the Aruwimi river, and by Nov. 1902 had reached Mawambi. He was responsible in for a corn mission of enquiry sent by King Leopold to enquire into the Belgian methods of administration, which Grenfell had begun to distrust, but their report was unsatisfactory. Grenfell died at Basoko on July I, 1906.
See W. H. Bentley, Life on the Congo (introd. by G. Grenfell, 1887) ; H. H. Johnston, George Grenfell and the Congo, 2 vols. (1908) ; G. Hawker, Life of George Grenfell (19o9) ; S. J. Dickins, Grenfell of the Congo (1910) .