Sir Wilfred Thomason Grenfell was born in Cheshire, England in 1865, the second of four sons of the Reverend Algernon Sidney Grenfell, headmaster of Mostyn House School, Parkgate, and his wife Jane Georgina Hutchinson. While studying medicine at the London Hospital Medical School, he came under the influence of American revivalist Dwight L. Moody. An athlete skilled in boxing, cricket, rugby, and rowing, he was an early exponent of the muscular Christianity made famous by Charles Kingsley.