'Hidden under many bushels': Lady Victoria Plunket and the New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children

Abstract

On 14 May 1907 in Dunedin, Dr Truby King founded the New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children, now known as the Plunket Society. It was named in honour of Lady Victoria Plunket, wife of the unexceptional Sir William 'Willie' Plunket, Governor-General of New Zealand from 1904 to 1910. Within 20 years, both King, the Society and its nurses had become international icons of infant welfare and enduring symbols of the strength and might of all things British. The success of the Plunket Society is well known and the organization remains an influential and important New Zealand institution. At one time or another a large majority of New Zealand parents have accessed the Society's child health services including the Plunket nurse. Its history has also been well served in recent times. Linda Bryder's book 'A Voice for Mothers' offers a comprehensive and readable history of the Plunket Society, and places it firmly within the history of the voluntary sector in the twentieth century. Indeed Bryder states that the Plunket Society is perhaps the 'most successful voluntary organization' in New Zealand. Phillipa Mein Smith's seminal 1997 monograph, 'Mothers and King Baby', focused on the decline of infant mortality and the rise of the infant welfare movement in the twentieth century, and featured the role and international influences of Truby King. Mein Smith examined why, and how, King and the concept of the 'Truby King Baby' became so important within New Zealand and across the British empire, especially in the period between 1920 and 1950.