Today’s Leader of Faith
SIR WILLIAM JAMES WANLESS
Home Call : 03 March 1933
Famous Medical Missionary, Surgeon, Humanitarian, Hospital Founder, Educator, Author
Sir William James Wanless (1865–1933) was a Canadian-born surgeon, humanitarian, and Presbyterian missionary who founded a medical mission in Miraj, Maharashtra, India, in 1894 and led it for nearly 40 years. As part of this mission, Dr. Wanless founded Maharashtra’s first missionary medical school in 1897, and helped to establish a leprosy sanatorium as well as a tuberculosis hospital, now known as the Wanless Chest Hospital. Through his service, many long-term patients received treatment and rehabilitation. For a long time, it was widely known as the renowned Chest Hospital, and it is now named Wanless Hospital in his honor. His efforts transformed the small village of Miraj into a major medical centre. By the time he retired in 1928, the clinic he had started had grown into a 250-bed hospital with several key adjuncts. He was widely regarded as India’s most famous surgeon of the 19th century and was known throughout Asia, personally treating princes, rajahs, and even Mahatma Gandhi. In recognition of his service, having treated one million patients and restored sight to 12,000 of them; King George V knighted him in 1928, appointing him Knight Bachelor of the British Empire. He received official honors from Great Britain thrice.
Wanless was born in Charleston, Canada, the sixth of 14 children. He graduated from the New York University School of Medicine in 1889, married Mary Elizabeth Marshall, and sailed for India the same year. After Mary’s death in 1906, he remarried Lillian Emery Havens in 1907, with whom he had three children.
Wanless was sent to India in 1889 by the Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church. In 1891, he chose Miraj, Maharashtra, for his mission hospital, starting with a small dispensary. With land provided by Rajah Sir Gangadharrao Ganesh Patwardhan, the hospital formally opened in 1894 in what is now Wanlesswadi. To improve medical care, Wanless founded a School of Nursing in 1897 and the Miraj Christian Medical School in 1907. The Mary Wanless Hospital was established in memory of his first wife in 1906. In 1920, he set up a Tuberculosis Sanatorium, later renamed Wanless Chest Hospital. Additional institutions like the Vail Memorial Cancer Institute (1937) and the Goheen Psychiatric Clinic (1955) expanded medical services. Wanless also established five outpost stations and paid the hospital’s 125-member staff from his missionary salary, donating his personal earnings to the mission. He also authored some books.
In 1928, after nearly 40 years of medical missionary service in India, Wanless retired to the United States. He wrote a book, “Medicine in India” on his life as a doctor in India. He passed away on March 3, 1933, in Glendale, California, where he was buried. His wife, Lillian, lived until 1973. Their son, Harold, continued his father’s legacy by studying medicine at the University of Toronto. His medical mission has since grown into a 550-bed teaching hospital affiliated with India’s Government Medical College, along with a College of Nursing, an Institute of Pharmacy, and paramedical programs. The hospitals he founded are now in Wanlesswadi, a township named in his honor, which has its own postal code and railway station. Today, Wanless Hospital remains a leading healthcare institution, serving western Maharashtra and North Karnataka.