Author(s): Lloyd Chapman

NZ Education & Health | Secondhand | NZ Biography & Memoirs

Truby King has touched the lives of most New Zealanders. Founder of the Plunket movement that led our mothers and grandmothers into military-style baby management, his influence is enormous. Although his extreme and restrictive views about women would be ridiculed today, he gave them a health regime that dramatically reduced child mortality and was the envy of the world. But who was Truby King? While researching roses grown in France over a hundred years ago, Lloyd Chapman kept stumbling over the name 'Truby King' in nursery records and soon discovered that King was a manic gardener who had imported thousands of plants from Europe. This was the start of a trail that led Chapman all around New Zealand, from abandoned model farms and goldmines to mental institutes and museums, in search of the enigmatic King - scientist, farmer, husband, father, famous baby doctor. The compelling portrait of a truly eccentric but gifted man.