William Sidney Gilchrist

Who was William Sidney Gilchrist?

Dr. William Sidney Gilchrist, born in Pictou, Nova Scotia, Canada, spent 38 years as a medical missionary in Angola. Sid Gilchrist was the youngest of five children. His ancestry was Scottish and Presbyterian, and he graduated in medicine from Dalhousie University.

Two years before he completed his medical studies, Sidney Gilchrist married Frances Harriet Killam of Halifax. When he completed his medical studies they volunteered to go abroad as medical missionaries. In 1928 they were appointed to Angola by the Board of Overseas Missions of the United Church of Canada.

Before proceeding to the vast Portuguese colony on the west coast of Africa, the Gilchrists spent a year in Portugal, studying both Portuguese and the African languages spoken in Angola. During this time Dr. Gilchrist earned a Diploma in Tropical Medicine at the University of Lisbon. The Gilchrists arrived in Angola in 1930 and began their work in a part of the world where there was one doctor for every 100,000 people, where the average life expectancy was 30 years, and where 50% of infants died during the first year of life.