Service on the Skeena
HORACE WRINCH, FRONTIER PHYSICIAN
B.C. History, Biography
- Price
- $28.95
His name was Horace Wrinch. It was 1880. He was 14 years old, a farmer’s boy from England travelling on his own to Quebec. Twenty years later, a qualified doctor and surgeon, he arrived in Hazelton on the Skeena River in northern British Columbia as a Canadian citizen. At this time the northern interior of the province had no qualified doctors, no surgeons and no hospitals.
In 1904 Horace built the first hospital in the northern interior. Over the next thirty-six years he became widely respected as a doctor and surgeon, hospital administrator, medical missionary, Methodist minister, magistrate, farmer, community leader and progressive politician. Ever innovative, he instituted a form of health insurance for the Hazelton community as early as 1908. In the 1920s, he was a two-term president of the newly established British Columbia Hospital Association and a two-term Liberal Member of the Provincial Legislature for the Skeena riding. While in the Legislature, he championed publicly funded health insurance. Upon his death in 1939, he was called “the most influential and best liked man that ever blessed this district with his presence.”
Drawn almost entirely from original and contemporaneous sources, this is the previously untold story of a remarkable British Columbian.
Reviews
Winner, George Ryga for Social Awareness in Literature.
“Mynett brings the human side of Horace Wrinch to life in this accessible and superbly written work.” —BC BookWorld
“Through this rigorous study, he portrays a compelling account of Wrinch’s life and work.” —The British Columbia Review
“Service on the Skeena not only provides the fascinating life story of this remarkable man, it also fills important gaps in the history of northwest B.C.” —Neil Sterritt, Former Gitxsan-Wet’suwet’en Tribal Council President
“I highly recommend this excellent biography of an outstanding pioneer doctor.” —BC Medical Journal
“Many in the general public and among scholars will appreciate Mynett’s contribution, and future historians of northern British Columbia, of the history of health care and health insurance, and of missionary doctors will find in this book an excellent source for further research.” —BC Studies
Book Details
Pub Date: October 2019
Trade Paperback
460 Pages
Print ISBN 9781553805755
E-book ISBN 9781553805762
PDF ISBN 9781553805779
6” x 9”
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