The former Truby King House was designed by the prominent Wellington architect William Gray Young in 1923 for the founders of the Plunket Society, Sir Truby and Lady Isabella King.
Frederic Truby King (1858 – 1938) was born and raised in New Plymouth and studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh with postgraduate specialisations in mental and public health. He married Isabella Cockburn Millar in 1887 and the couple sailed for New Zealand in the same year. King was appointed medical superintendant of Seacliff Lunatic Asylum in 1889. Seacliff was the nation’s largest farm asylum at that time and King went on to develop an enduring interest in plant and animal husbandry that is thought to have greatly influenced his later research on infant feeding and human nutrition.
When the couple adopted their infant daughter, Mary, King became interested in the feeding regime for the child. This led in part to the establishment of the Society for the Promotion of the Health of Women and Children in May 1907, and the society was later renamed the Plunket Society after its first patron, Lady Victoria Plunket.
The Plunket movement was established to promote infant and maternal welfare and prevent infant mortality. Information on the care of children, including advice on feeding and domestic hygiene, was disseminated through clinics and by trained nurses who visited mothers in their homes. Ailing infants were taken to the King’s holiday home in Karitane, near Dunedin, and this became the prototype for the many Karitane neonatal hospitals that were later constructed throughout New Zealand.
When King was in his mid-sixties and by then a famous New Zealander, he bought land on the slopes of Melrose and planned a complex of buildings. He first purchased the northernmost section of the site in 1922 and this allowed for the construction of the family home (1923- 24), but it seems likely that there was an arrangement with the owners of the adjoining section as the Karitane Products Society Building (1923 – 24) appears to have been built on this site ahead of its purchase in 1927. King also purchased a third site to the south east of the house and factory and this was almost immediately transferred to the Plunket Society as the location for a new Karitane Hospital that was constructed in 1927.
The family home was designed as a single storey bungalow with a wide verandah along the north elevation. This was sheltered by a series of moveable mesh screens, most likely designed by King. King’s study to the south-east of the building featured a large vertically sliding sash window that was operated by a winch. The window is likely to have been a later alteration as the original drawing shows the window as three casements. Early photographs show a telescope set up in front of this window that was presumably used to take advantage of the spectacular views over Wellington harbour. King and gardener Dan Russell also designed the surrounding park grounds that included a much needed shelter belt of radiata pine, tennis courts, and rhododendron dell.
In 1924 Isabella King’s health began to deteriorate, and she died in 1927. She had been the mainstay behind Truby King’s work, and was instrumental in the formation of the Plunket Society. She was an intelligent and well educated woman who had acted as King’s secretary and wrote newspaper articles under the penname ‘Hygeia’ on the feeding and care of babies and infants. Truby King gradually withdrew from active medical work in the years after Isabella’s death. He moved out of the house when it was effectively donated to the Plunket society in 1932, and it is likely that the society added the garage under the house in 1935 and converted bedrooms 1, 2 and the north-east corner of the verandah to form a large board-room at some time prior to 1938. The mesh screens on the verandah were also removed by this date.
Although Plunket occupied the house at Mount Melrose, Truby King expressed a wish to be interred in the gardens after his death. Special legislation was passed in the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Act of 1936 that would allow burial at the site of the existing pergola on high ground to the south of the house. The mausoleum foundations and vault were designed and constructed in 1936 and King returned to the house shortly before his death in 1938. When he died he was the first private citizen to be buried with full state honours. King was interred at Melrose alongside the remains of Isabella which were transferred from their original resting place in Porirua. The Plunket Society launched a national appeal for funds to erect a monument that was completed with government assistance in 1941.
The Public Trustee administered King’s estate in the 1940s but, as the land and buildings were heavily mortgaged, it was not immediately apparent if the estate was in fact solvent. The only profitable part of Truby King’s legacy had been the establishment of the Karitane Products Society that produced baby food and infant formula from the factory building at Mount Melrose and donated its profits to all the various Plunket Societies in New Zealand and beyond. The bequest of the Mt Melrose estate to the Wellington Branch of the Plunket Society was effectively funded by the Karitane Products Society that bought the mortgages on the property and donated the house and land, with a value of £3,000, in lieu of annual grants. It was intended that the house would then operate ‘as an extension to the [nearby] Karitane Hospital,’ but would be held on a separate title from the hospital. The three original lots of land that King had purchased in the 1920s were then subdivided to suit the topography of the site, and the locations of the Karitane Products Society factory, Truby King’s house, the mausoleum and the Karitane Hospital.
The house is said to have been commandeered by the army in WWII, and also used as a convalescent and nurses’ home at some time in the 1960s. It was formally transferred from the Public Trustee to the Plunket Society in 1961 and was used as an office for the Deputy Director of Nursing. A caretaker’s flat was created in the service rooms at the south west of the building in 1979.
The Plunket Society faced financial difficulties in the 1970s and 80s, and there was public concern that the house, mausoleum and gardens would be sold and the land subdivided. It was purchased by the Wellington City Council in 1991, and a draft management plan was created in 1991 – 92 following public consultation and research. The council then undertook a maintenance programme, and major works include fire safety alterations (1993 – 94), the installation of a new roof (2005), and the installation of a commercial kitchen (2008).
Although the caretaker’s flat was tenanted, the bulk of the house lay vacant for many years in the early to mid 1990s. The WCC undertook a feasibility study in 1997 to identify a potential use for the house and the preferred option was to upgrade the property for use as a multi-purpose venue that would incorporate a museum, café, information/interpretation centre and corporate seminar facility. This work has yet to be started and it is currently let to commercial tenants. The gardens including the Truby King Mausoleum, have been renamed Truby King Park and the grounds are open to the public.
