Challenging New Zealand’s Icon, Sir Frederic Truby King

Abstract

In 1907 New Zealander Dr Frederic Truby King, who had qualified in medicine at Edinburgh, founded the Society for the Protection of the Health of Women and Children (the ‘Plunket Society’) in New Zealand for the promotion of the welfare of mothers and newborn infants. His publications became an authoritative source of childrearing advice in New Zealand and elsewhere. Over time Truby King and his childrearing advice have been the subject of severe criticism. These challenges emanated from paediatricians in the 1930s, psychologists in the 1950s and social historians from the 1970s. Each had different reasons for attacking King, but cumulatively cast him as a villain, arguing that his advice was seriously damaging to mothers and infants. In this article, I contextualise and interrogate these challenges, and finally revisit his childrearing manuals to test some of the assumptions made about his advice to parents.