Truby King
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Dr Sir Frederic Truby King KB, CMG (1 April 1858 - 10 February 1938), generally known as Truby King, was a New Zealand health reformer and Director of Child Welfare. He is best known as the founder of the Plunket Society.
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[edit] Early life
Born at New Plymouth on 1 April 1858, Truby King was privately educated by Henry Richmond and proved to be a keen scholar. After working for a short time as a bank clerk, he travelled to Edinburgh to study medicine. In 1886, he graduated with honours with a M.B., C.M, and later completed a B.Sc. in Public Health (Edinburgh). Although his interest was in surgery, it was the demonstrations of Charcot on hysteria and neurological disorders which influenced his choice of career.
[edit] Medical Appointments
In 1887 Dr Truby King was appointed resident surgeon at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary before becoming Medical Superintendent of the Wellington General Hospital. By 1889 he was in Dunedin, as Medical Superintendent at the Seacliff Mental Hospital and as a lecturer in mental diseases at the University of Otago.
At Seacliff, he introduced better diets for patients and more discipline for staff. The 'villa' style of treatment, with smaller and more open wards was also one of his innovations. These reforms and King's own intransigence to those who opposed them led to a Commission of Inquiry, which completely vindicated his methods.
[edit] Establishment of Plunket
Over the next eight years, Dr Truby King had interests in psychology, medicine, nutrition, child care, and alcoholism, but it was the establishment of the Plunket Society in 1907 for which he is best known. Set up to apply scientific principles to nutrition of babies, it was based on domestic hygiene and education of mothers. The regularity of feeding, sleeping and bowel movements was emphasised by Karitane nurses and in Dr King's first book on mothercare, 'Feeding and Care of Baby'. The work of the Plunket Society was credited with lowering infant mortality in New Zealand from 88 per thousand in 1907 to 32 per thousand over the next thirty years.
[edit] Public Service
Truby King was appointed to represent New Zealand in 1913 at the Child Welfare Conference in London and was invited to assist in the establishment of a child public health service in Britain. Following the First World War, he was one of the British Representatives at the Inter-allied Red Cross Conference and travelled through Europe for the War Victims Relief Committee.
Back in New Zealand by 1921, King became Director of Child Welfare in the Department of Health and by 1925 also Inspector-General of Mental Hospitals. Until his retirement in 1927, he continued to develop and organise mental hospital services in New Zealand. His work was recognised by the award of a C.M.G in 1917 and a knighthood in 1925.
[edit] Aphorisms
- ‘It is better to put a fence at the top of a cliff than to station an ambulance at the bottom’ - (attributed) reference to infant mortality prevention
- 'I am King of Seacliff, and I do not like that colour' (attributed) complaint to a railway worker painting the Seacliff station (the worker's reply, sadly, is not recorded)
[edit] Later years
Sir Frederic Truby King died in Wellington on 10 February 1938 and was buried at a state funeral.
[edit] External links
- Biography of Sir Frederic Truby King from 'An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand (1966)
