SIR TRUBY KING.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 208, 3 September 1927, Page 12

SIR TRUBY KING.

RETIREMENT ANNOUNCED.

PLUWKET SOCIETY'S FOUHDIB WORLD-WIDE REPUTATION". (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent) WELLINGTON, Friday. Sir Truby King, Inspector-General of Mental Hospitals, is to retire fiom the Mental Hospitals Department, after 38 years' service. It is understood that he desired to relinquish his position at the end of this month and intends leaving on a visit to England early next year. Sir Truby King has achieved a worldwide reputation through his child 'welfare work and as the founder of the Plunket Society. He was horn in New Plymouth in 1858, and commenced his studies at Edinburgh University in 1880. On attaining his degree he was awarded the Eceles Scholarship as the most distinguished graduate of his year, 1886. He spent two years in studying public health and was one of the first few graduates in the then new subject of preventive medicine. He took his degree as bachelor of science in public health after spending a year as resident physician and resident surgeon at Edinburgh and Glasgow Royal Infirmaries. First Work in Dominion,. On returning to New Zealand in 188S, Sir Truby was appointed medical superintendent of Wellington Hospital, and in the following year was given charge of Seacliff Mental Hospital and was appointed lecturer in mental diseases and examiner in public health at Otago University. In 1894 he returned to England to study brain pathology and nervous and mental diseases, and he qualified as a member of the Psychological Association.

In 1907 Sir Truby founded the Plunket Society, which has since claimed a large share of his attention and activities. In 1918 he was appointed delegate and I representative for New Zealand at the I Child Welfare Conference in London and rthe General Medical Conference. In 1917 he was appointed C.M\t. Plunket Work Abroad. Toward the close of that year he was asked to undertake the establishment in the Old Country of work similar to that of the Plunket Society. In conjunction with Miss Patrick, now Director of Plunket Nursing for New Zealand, he founded the Motherfraft Training Centre at Earls Court. Immediately after the war he was appointed one of three British representatives of child welfare interests at the inter-allied Red Cross conference which sat for nearly a month at Cannes, Riviera. He was then appointed by the War Victims Relief Committee to visit Austria and Poland in the interests of women and children.

Toward the close of 1919 Sir Truby was asked to lecture throughout Australia, with a view to establishing work similar to that of the Plunket Society in the Commonwealth. That is now being carried out in the principal States of Australia, and mothercraft training centres run strictly on New Zealand [lines have been established in Melbourne ■and Sydney. Plunket Bodety work is also being established in South Africa, and it is intended that the Lady Buxton Baby Hospital and Mothercraft Training Centre in that country shall be conducted on similar lines.

Plunket Society work has for many vears occupied a prominent position in the United States and Canada and several official bulletins have been published and disseminated from Washington. The work in Palestine is run entirely on New Zealand lines, the nurses being supplied from the Mothercraft Training Centre at Earls Court. Other Activities. In 1921 Sir Truby was appointed Director of Child Welfare. During 1924 he was a member of the committee set up by the Government to investigate and report concerning mental degenerates and sexual perverts. He has published a great amount of literature in regard to mothercraft and child welfare which has been translated into several European languages, including Poliah, Russian and Hungarian. Sir Truby King's father, Mr. Thomas King, was one of the original pioneer Taranaki settlers. The'late Mr. Newton King, of New Plymouth, was a brother of Sir Truby. - • Sir Trilby's services were recognised by bis having the honour of knighthood bestowed upon him in January, 1925. .