Robert G. Grierson (February 15, 1868 – May 8, 1965) was a Canadian medical doctor, Presbyterian missionary, and educator who worked in Korea for thirty-six years.
Grierson had multiple responsibilities as a reverend, school teacher, doctor, and missionary, and he was dissatisfied by the fact that he couldn't fully devote himself in spreading the Christian belief as a member of the Presbyterian Church in Canada.
[5] In the early years, Grierson strived to finish the language instruction before any official medical and mission work by not taking in any patients.
[5] However, due to the great number of patients who needed medical attention, he began to care for patients: "We had scarcely time to get into the house we had rented when we were besieged by sick people ... so piteous and persistent were the calls for help that it did not seem humane to refuse; and very reluctantly study was almost entirely laid aside and medical and surgical work undertaken.
[11] Grierson assumed responsibility of carrying out missionary work at Sŏngjin while MacRae and Dr. Kate McMillan, who joined in early 1901 through the Foreign Mission Committee, took on Hamhung territory.
After the war, Grierson bought land next to the churchyard from a Korean landowner and built Sung-jun Church, Bosin Boys' School, and Sŏngjin clinic.
[4] Grierson's missionary work was continuously impeded by the financial crisis of the Scottish church Foreign Mission Committee.
[13] Eight Korean doctors assisted Grierson at the Jedong Hospital, and among them, four were students of the Bosin Boys' School and executives of Sŏngjin Area YMCA.
[4] Grierson was later interrogated by the Japanese police for actively helping and participating in the Sŏngjin Mansei demonstration such as printing thirty thousand copies of the Korean Declaration of Independence.
The Yongjung church members and teacher and student of the Bosin Boys' School actively participated in the Sŏngjin Mansei demonstration.
[19][20] The "Triangle of the Church, School, and Hospital" was established in the Sŏngjin area with students who received modern education becoming a local society leader as well as a missionary.