Incredible story on how the combined efforts of medical professionals, community spirit and volunteer support came together in 1935, right here in Timaru, to take on polio. Thankfully, polio is now a past illness for most of the world. Thanks to a determined and far-reaching eradication programme, the only corner of the globe still grappling with this disease is Afghanistan, where ongoing conflict has made vaccination campaigns incredibly difficult.
It is hard to believe now, but at one point, polio ruined lives all around the world and even in small communities like ours in South Canterbury. The disease especially targeted children, often leaving them suddenly and permanently crippled.
In 2025, we mark the 90 years since the founding of the New Zealand Crippled Children Society, established in Timaru on 1 March 1935. At a time when polio was crippling children and there was no universal healthcare, this small South Canterbury town became the starting point for a national movement that brought together doctors, volunteers and local communities to support disabled children. The anniversary offers a chance to reflect on Timaru’s proud legacy of compassion, leadership and action—a legacy that helped shape New Zealand’s disability support system and contributed to the global effort to end polio.
Before vaccines, polio was a dreaded epidemic. In New Zealand, major outbreaks in 1916 and again in 1924 to 25 caused panic and heartbreak, leaving thousands of children with lifelong disabilities. These devastating outbreaks helped galvanise the country into action. Out of that need for care and rehabilitation came the founding of the Crippled Children Society in 1935.
The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) continues the mission today. Wild poliovirus remains only in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and in places where immunisation rates drop, vaccine-derived strains can still cause outbreaks.
Polio was once one of the most feared diseases in the world. Known properly as poliomyelitis, it is a virus that spreads easily from person to person, usually through contaminated water or food, or contact with saliva and faeces. In most people it causes no symptoms at all. But in a small percentage of cases, it attacks the nervous system, paralysing limbs or even the muscles used to breathe. It especially targeted children under five. For much of the twentieth century, parents lived in dread of the disease suddenly striking healthy children and leaving them permanently disabled.
The first major outbreak in the United States was recorded in Vermont in 1894, with 18 deaths and 132 people left paralysed. In New Zealand, the first major epidemic was in 1914. It killed 25 people. Two years later, the 1916 epidemic caused over 1000 new cases and more than 120 deaths. Further major outbreaks followed in 1925, 1937, 1948, 1952 and 1956. By the time the vaccine arrived in the 1950s, many thousands had been affected. In 1977, the last case of wild polio virus in New Zealand was recorded. But the fear and damage left in its wake had already changed the country forever.
Timaru was part of this wider story. In a time before universal healthcare, there was no organised government support for disabled children and their families. Many children who had survived polio lived with long-term disability, often isolated and excluded from school, employment and social life. Families were left to manage with little or no help. Doctors and surgeons could offer some treatment, but the health system saw disability mostly as a medical problem to be contained, not as something that required long-term social and educational support.
This was the context in which the Crippled Children Society was born. The name may sound uncomfortable today, but in the 1930s it reflected a direct and urgent concern for those left vulnerable in the community. A new kind of collaboration began to emerge between medical professionals and the wider public. One of the key figures was Dr Alexander Gillies, an orthopaedic surgeon trained in Britain and North America. In 1930, he addressed the Wellington Rotary Club, arguing that New Zealand needed a national organisation to support children with disabilities, particularly those affected by polio.
During an outbreak in 1947, the school year finished early and children were banned from cinemas, campgrounds and milk bars. In January 1948 the government announced that schools would not be opening until after Easter, and that ‘every home, where there are children of school age, will become a miniature school.’ The correspondence school sent out lesson books like this one and provided radio lessons.
Momentum grew through the early 1930s. Then in 1935, Rotarians from across the country gathered in Timaru. It was here that the first national constitution for the new society was drafted and approved. On 1 March 1935, the New Zealand Crippled Children Society was officially founded in Timaru. It was a moment of pride for the town and a turning point in how New Zealand responded to disability.
The society grew rapidly. Branches were set up across the country. It created special schools and residential homes. It offered physiotherapy and occupational therapy. It provided training so that disabled children could grow into independent adults with employment prospects. Just as importantly, it changed public attitudes. Children with disabilities were no longer seen only as problems to be hidden away. They were recognised as part of the community, with potential, talents and the right to a full life.
Timaru was not just the birthplace of the society but a symbol of how a community can step up. In a world still reeling from war and economic depression, and with polio outbreaks striking every few years, it took courage and compassion to act. Medical professionals alone could not do it. Volunteers, families, local leaders and everyday citizens made it happen.
Globally, the fight against polio continued. In 1985, Rotary International launched PolioPlus, the first major private-sector effort to support a public health campaign. In 1988, it joined the World Health Organization and others to create the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. At that time, polio paralysed 350,000 children every year across 125 countries. By 2000, 550 million children were receiving the vaccine, and the Western Pacific region, including New Zealand, was declared polio-free.
Milestones kept coming. India was removed from the list of endemic countries in 2012. Rotary members and health workers have helped immunise over 2.5 billion children in more than 120 countries. Today, polio remains endemic in only two countries. But the work is not done. If eradication efforts stop, polio could return, paralysing hundreds of thousands of children every year.
Timaru has its place in that global story. In 1985, the society celebrated its 50th anniversary back where it all began. Prime Minister David Lange spoke at the jubilee dinner. New Zealand Post issued a special commemorative postmark. It was a proud moment for a community that had once stood up when it mattered most.
This history reminds us what happens when people care enough to act. When doctors and citizens work together. When a small town decides it will not stand by. Timaru helped spark a movement that reached across New Zealand and around the world. That is a legacy worth remembering.
The little girl in the foreground seems to be thrilled that her vaccination comes in the form of a sugar cube and not a shot. https://library.tmc.edu/mcgovern/2015/07/07/centennial-photo-display-1960s-part-ii/
A woman stricken with polio in an iron lung on Nov. 30, 1954, in Syracuse, N.Y. (Associated Press) (uncredited/ASSOCIATED PRESS) https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/22/i-remember-polio/