John Clinch & The Trinity Vaccinations
Clinch Plaque at Trinity, NL
Just outside of St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Trinity there’s a small metal plaque bearing the name of John Clinch. It reads:
“Noted for bringing the Jenner vaccine to British North America.”
It’s an awfully short summary of a story that changed the lives of thousands of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians — and placed the small town of Trinity at the forefront of one of history’s greatest medical breakthroughs.
But how did it happen? How did Trinity become the first place in North America to practice smallpox vaccination? And why did it matter so much?
What Was Smallpox?
To understand the significance of Jenner and Clinch’s work, you need to understand the disease he was trying to fight.
Smallpox was one of the most feared diseases in human history. It spread easily, scarred survivors for life, and killed somewhere between 20 and 60% of people who contracted it. A third of those who survived went blind. Outbreaks tore through communities, leaving grief and devastation behind.
It was truly a terrible disease and it was ravaging Newfoundland communities.
In 1920 the Rev. Canon Smith, wrote a piece for a local newspaper recalling the death of his colleague Rev Charles Warren who was afflicted with smallpox after visitng a sick parishioner. Following is an excerpt of his article, I include it to paint a picture of just how serious smallpox was. If you have a particularly weak stomach, you may wish to jump past it.
“The sick man died a few hours after Warren had visited him. He was waked for two whole days and two whole nights. As is the custom in the outports many people attended his wake. On the afternoon of the third day ... the bearers carried the coffin to the churchyard for interment, and it was followed there by the whole congregation. In view of this
it has always been a wonder to me that three-fourths of the people then living in Upper Island Cove were not attacked by smallpox. But God was merciful and not quite 50 of them were visited by smallpox of whom, if I recollect aright, not more than 25 or at the most 30 died.
But poor Charles Warren did not so escape, for about a week after the funeral he was stricken down by confluent smallpox, which is said to be the most virulent and fatal form that this dread disease assumes. It is called confluent because in it the pustules run together and form one large most painful and most repulsive sore. From this sore excedes matter the stench emanating therefrom being as horrible as that which comes from a rotting corpse. This stench is highly infectious and contagious. Charles Warren died after a six days...”
By order of the health officer, Rev. Warren was buried secretly the night he died. They wanted to discourage any mourners visiting so as to limit any further spread of the disease.
It was a terrifying time.
In Newfoundland and around the world, families lived with the fear that the next outbreak could take their children, their neighbours, or themselves.
John Clinch & Edward Jenner
Two Schoolboys, Elias Martin, Public domain via Wikimedia
John Clinch and Edward Jenner were both born in England in the mid-1700s. They attended school together and formed a lasting friendship. As teenagers, they even moved to London together to study medicine.
In 1775, after hearing about Newfoundland from merchant Benjamin Lester, Clinch crossed the Atlantic and began practicing in Bonavista. Eight years later he relocated to Trinity, where he married and settled.
Though separated by an ocean, Clinch and Jenner kept up their friendship through regular correspondence. That connection would eventually lead to the first smallpox vaccinations in Newfoundland.
Vaccination
Back in England, Jenner was engaged in the fight against smallpox. At the time, there were few tools available; one that helped was variolation.
Variolation was a method of inoculation that existed before vaccination. It involved taking material from someone recently infected with smallpox and introducing it into scratches on the skin of a healthy person, with the hope of producing only a mild infection. That mild infection, in turn, was thought to prepare the body to fight off smallpox if it was ever encountered again.
It wasn’t exactly safe — somewhere between 1 and 2 percent of those who underwent variolation developed smallpox and died. But, with smallpox devastating communities, it was a risk many people were willing to take.
At the same time, people noticed that infection with cowpox — a relatively mild disease — seemed to provide protection against smallpox.
Jenner theorized that if someone was deliberately exposed to cowpox, they could be made resistant to smallpox. In 1796, he set out to collect data to prove it.
In an experiment that would never pass an ethics board today, Jenner extracted material from cowpox pustules on the hands of a milkmaid and inoculated the eight-year-old son of his gardener. The boy developed a fever but no serious illness. Later, when he was deliberately exposed to smallpox through variolation, he showed no signs of infection.
Jenner repeated these tests, carefully documented his findings and was able to prove vaccination (using cowpox) was a safe, reliable way of conferring resistance to smallpox.
Jenner performing his first vaccination/ Ernest Board, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
“The word vaccine comes from the cowpox virus vaccinia, which itself traces back to the Latin word vacca, meaning cow.”
When he began experimenting with vaccination, he faced an uphill battle convincing others to try it. So he turned to one of his closest friends — John Clinch. Jenner sent Clinch a vial containing threads of cowpox material, and in 1798, following Jenner’s instructions, Clinch likely became the first person in North America to practice vaccination when he inoculated his wife’s nephew, Joseph Hart.
Once Clinch was satisfied the vaccination had worked, he went on to vaccinate hundreds more Newfoundlanders. He recorded his observations and shared them with Jenner, who reproduced them in the Medical and Physical Journal, May 1801:
an excerpt of Jenner’s letter in Medical and Physical Journal, May 1801.
Over time, the effectiveness of Jenner’s vaccination was widely recognized, and the risky practice of variolation was abandoned.
Why It Still Matters
John Clinch’s Gravestone, Trinity, NL
Vaccination changed the world for the better.
What began as a way to protect individuals from the ravages of smallpox eventually defeated the disease itself. By 1980, smallpox was declared eradicated — the first and only human disease wiped out entirely.
The small plaque outside St. Paul’s Anglican Church might seem modest, but the story behind it is anything but. It marks the work of a small-town doctor, a lifelong friendship, and a decision that saved lives across Newfoundland — and ultimately, across the globe.
John Clinch died in 1819. His grave is in St. Paul’s churchyard at Trinity, only a short stroll from the plaque that bears his name.
It’s a quiet reminder that some of the biggest stories can be found in the smallest of places.
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The Rev. Mr. Jenner, on Vaccine, Med. Phys. Jourrnal, May 1801
Queen’s College Men, Daily News, Nov 20, 1920
Dr. Jenner of Berkley, Dorothy Fisk, 1959
Smallpox and Vaccination, Times and Commercial Gazette, March 18, 1871
Dirty, Diseased & Dangerous, Book of Newfoundland, Vol. 5.
Smallpox and Jenner, Evening Herald, March 26, 1903
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