Wilfred George Tidmarsh, 1903-1986
Wilfred George Tidmarsh was born in Stonemarket, England in 1903. Brought up in Suffolk, he earned a degree in geology from University of London and taught at Worcester College for the Blind before training as a doctor at the Missionary School of Medicine in London in 1937. He sailed for Ecuador in January 1939 under the auspices of the Plymouth Brethren’s Christian Missions in Many Lands. In 1947, Tidmarsh married Gwendolyn Kretzel Gill in Quito. The Tidmarshes supervised the Shandia station in eastern Ecuador for the Quichua people, among other mission stations. Besides schools, homeopathic clinics and evangelistic efforts, Wilfred Tidmarsh also began translating the New Testament into Quichua. He later donated many of his photographs documenting the Shuar, Tsáchila, Runa, and Záparo people to the Smithsonian Institute’s Museum of the North American Indian in Washington, D.C.
Through his work with Amazonian indigenous groups, Tidmarsh developed a deep interest in reaching the isolated Waorani people in the Amazon basin, who had fiercely resisted contact with outsiders. Tidmarsh began compiling lists of Wao vocabulary in preparation for future contact with the Waorani. His interest in the indigenous people group was shared by fellow Brethren missionaries Jim Elliot and Pete Fleming. Even though Tidmarsh had invited the Flemings and Elliots to join the work at Shandia, the missionaries kept their plans to contact the Waorani a secret from their supervisor, who was known for his strong and domineering personality.
After the death of the five missionaries in 1956, Tidmarsh made another effort to contact the Waorani, broadcasting friendly messages to Waorani villages from an MAF airplane and building a small hut inside Waorani territory where a few Quichua had also settled. The structure was attacked by Waorani warriors in October 1957 and Tidmarsh abandoned the project, but only a month later, two Waorani women emerged from the rainforest at the same location, where they met Elisabeth Elliot and Rachel Saint, a meeting that led to the founding of a Christian community among the Waorani. The Tidmarshes eventually moved to Quito for the education of their children and refocused their ministry among Spanish speakers. Over the years, Wilfred Tidmarsh continued to visit Quichua villages to bolster ongoing missionary activity there. After retiring to San Diego, California in 1973, Tidmarsh continued to visit Ecuador and to encourage and support the fledgling indigenous churches. Wilfred Tidmarsh died in the United States on October 1, 1986.
