John Clinch (January 9, 1749 – November 22, 1819) was a

clergyman Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

credited with being the first man to practice

vaccination Vaccination is the administration of a vaccine to help the immune system develop immunity from a disease. Vaccines contain a microorganism or virus in a weakened, live or killed state, or proteins or toxins from the organism. In stimulat ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

Biography

He was born in

Cirencester Cirencester (, ; see below for more variations) is a market town in Gloucestershire, England, west of London. Cirencester lies on the River Churn, a tributary of the River Thames, and is the largest town in the Cotswolds. It is the home of ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

, one of twin children of Thomas Clinch of

Bere Regis Bere Regis () is a village and civil parish in Dorset, England, situated north-west of Wareham. In the 2011 census the civil parish had a population of 1,745. The village has one shop, a family-owned cheese barn, a post office, and two pubs ...

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of , ...

. In 1798 he administered the first

smallpox vaccine The smallpox vaccine is the first vaccine to be developed against a contagious disease. In 1796, British physician Edward Jenner demonstrated that an infection with the relatively mild cowpox virus conferred immunity against the deadly smallpox ...

s at Trinity,

Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...

. Clinch had attended school in Cirencester with the vaccine pioneer

Edward Jenner Edward Jenner, (17 May 1749 – 26 January 1823) was a British physician and scientist who pioneered the concept of vaccines, and created the smallpox vaccine, the world's first vaccine. The terms ''vaccine'' and ''vaccination'' are derived f ...

, and both had then studied medicine under John Hunter. Clinch also compiled a glossary of the Beothuk language containing over 100 words.Hewson, John. 1978. ''Beothuk Vocabularies''. (Technical Papers of the Newfoundland Museum, 2.) St. John's: Newfoundland: Newfoundland Museum, St. John's. 178pp. He died in 1819 in

Trinity The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God th ...

References

External links

*
Newfoundland Grand Banks Genealogy website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Clinch, John 1749 births 1819 deaths 18th-century Canadian Anglican priests 18th-century Canadian physicians People from Cirencester People from Newfoundland (island) Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada)