{"id":361,"date":"2023-08-24T16:54:50","date_gmt":"2023-08-24T16:54:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennruscoe.physio\/newswebsite2\/2023\/08\/24\/the-sunlight-league\/"},"modified":"2023-08-24T16:54:50","modified_gmt":"2023-08-24T16:54:50","slug":"the-sunlight-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennruscoe.physio\/newswebsite2\/2023\/08\/24\/the-sunlight-league\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sunlight League"},"content":{"rendered":"

Physiotherapist Cora Wilding founded the Sunlight League in New Zealand, was instrumental in establishing the Youth Hostel Association and was one of the most passionate advocates for the physical culture movement. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The Physical Culture Movement was a health and fitness movement that began in Europe during the 19th century, spreading to England and the United States it continued till the mid-20th century.\u00a0 It was driven by multiple factors such as the sedentariness of industrialisation, nationalisation, military readiness, personal health and eugenics. Its legacy can still be found today in disciplines such as gymnastics, body building, modern massage, sport\/exercise science and of course, physiotherapy.<\/p>\n

Cora Wilding was born in Christchurch, the daughter of Frederick Wilding and Julia Anthony, both passionate advocates for physical fitness.\u00a0 Cora\u2019s brother, Anthony, would later become a Wimbledon tennis champion (Men\u2019s singles champion 1910 \u2013 1913) and Davis Cup player and Cora herself was very keen on sport, representing Nelson Girls\u2019 College in hockey and tennis.<\/p>\n

Wilding\u2019s interest in the outdoors led her to pursue a career as a landscape artist, spending time in Europe with Frances Hodgkins and others \u2013 benefiting from her father\u2019s generous allowance.\u00a0 A desire to serve her country in the First World War brought her back to New Zealand in 1917 and led to her enrolment at the Dunedin School of Massage.\u00a0 She practised only briefly in New Zealand and England on graduation, but during her time in Europe she would visit the Children\u2019s Clinic of renowned Dr Auguste Rollier in Leysin, Switzerland \u2013 a visit that would change her life.<\/p>\n

Rollier was famous for his beliefs in the curative properties of sunlight (or heliotherapy).\u00a0 He claimed to have successfully treated thousands of cases of tuberculosis of the bones, joints and skin.\u00a0 After Wilding\u2019s visit to the clinic, she returned to New Zealand and immediately put into practice Rollier\u2019s ideas, establishing health camps around the South Island, managed by the newly formed Sunlight League.<\/p>\n

The Sunlight League worked to improve the health of children by exposing them to fresh air, sunlight, exercise, healthy diets and dental hygiene.\u00a0 The League\u2019s aims were undoubtedly based on the principles of eugenics \u2013 a term coined by Charles Darwin\u2019s cousin, Sir Francis Galton, which drew directly on Darwin\u2019s own ideas of natural selection \u2013 and argued that selective breeding and conditioning of \u201cstronger\u201d members of society would enhance the individual and collective strength of the race.<\/p>\n

One of the League\u2019s aims stated that it sought to \u201ceducate people\u2026in the knowledge of the laws of heredity, the importance of civic worth and racial value, and by the study of eugenics to exchange racial deterioration for racial improvement\u201d (Gush, 2009, p. 4).\u00a0 To this end, Wilding \u201ccarefully selected children (mainly girls) of \u2018good heredity\u2019 from \u2018self-respecting homes\u2019 who were capable of becoming good citizens\u201d (Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, 2010).\u00a0 It has recently been argued, however, that Wilding\u2019s own interests lay in the aesthetic and health benefits of health camps and youth hostelling, rather than the overtly eugenic aims of the League (Gush, 2009).<\/p>\n

Wilding may have drawn away from overtly practicing physiotherapy (or massage as it was known then) because the profession concentrated more on the development of ultraviolet technology and remedial exercise for individual patients than the population-based eugenics of physical culture, but there are undoubted parallels between Wilding\u2019s life as a therapist, and that of the social reformer.<\/p>\n

Dr George Jobberns, President of the New Zealand Youth Hostel Association from 1936 to 1946, once noted that \u201cIf [Cora] knocks on your door and asks you to do something, do it right away \u2013 because you will have to do it eventually anyway\u201d (Crooks, 1982, p. 14).\u00a0 Wilding was clearly a highly charismatic and charming woman with a passion for the health and wellbeing of New Zealanders.\u00a0 Her memoirs held at the University of Canterbury Library tell a fascinating story of some of the formative influences upon early physiotherapy practice in New Zealand.<\/p>\n

NB: Originally written as part of the New Zealand Centenary History Project.<\/strong><\/p>\n

References<\/h4>\n

Crooks, D. 1982. Cora & Co.: The first half-century of New Zealand youth hostelling. Christchurch: Youth Hostels Association of New Zealand Inc.<\/p>\n

Gush, N. 2009. The Beauty of Health: Cora Wilding and the Sunlight League. New Zealand Journal of History, 43(1), 1-17.<\/p>\n

Tennant, M. 1996. Children\u2019s Health Camps in New Zealand: The Making of a Movement, 1919-1940. Social History of Medicine, 9(1), 69-87.<\/p>\n

Wanhalla, A. 2007. To \u2018Better the Breed of Men\u2019: women and eugenics in New Zealand, 1900-1935. Women History Review, 16(2), 163-182.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Physiotherapist Cora Wilding founded the Sunlight League in New Zealand, was instrumental in establishing the Youth Hostel Association and was one of the most passionate advocates for the physical culture movement. The Physical Culture Movement was a health and fitness…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"_ti_tpc_template_sync":false,"_ti_tpc_template_id":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-physio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennruscoe.physio\/newswebsite2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennruscoe.physio\/newswebsite2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennruscoe.physio\/newswebsite2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennruscoe.physio\/newswebsite2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glennruscoe.physio\/newswebsite2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennruscoe.physio\/newswebsite2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennruscoe.physio\/newswebsite2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennruscoe.physio\/newswebsite2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}