Truby King

Sir Frederic Truby King (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. Early life King was born in New Plymouth on 1 April 1858, the son of Thomas and Mary King. His brother, Newton King, was to become a leading Taranaki businessman. 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 and Paris to study medicine. In 1886, he graduated with honours with a M.B., C.M, and later completed a BSc in Public Health (Edinburgh). Although his interest was in surgery it was the demonstrations of Charcot on hysteria and neurological disorders that influenced his choice of career. While training in Scotland he married Isabella Cockburn Miller. Around 1904, King and his wife adopted the infant daughter of Leilah Gordon when Gordon's husband was sick, a decision that Gordon regretted for the rest of her life. The baby, named Esther Loreena, became known as Mary King. Medical appointments In 1887, while still in Scotland, King was appointed resident surgeon at both the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and Glasgow Royal Infirmary. Returning to New Zealand he became Medical Superintendent of the Wellington General Hospital from 1888 to 1889. By 1889 he was in Dunedin as Medical Superintendent at the Seacliff Lunatic Asylum and as a lecturer in mental diseases at the University of Otago. At Seacliff he introduced better diets for patients, more discipline for staff and improvements to the hospital farm. 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.