{{Short description|British physical therapist and youth worker}} {{Use dmy dates|date=March 2021}} {{Infobox person | name = Molly Clutton-Brock | image = Molly_Clutton_Brock_giving_therapy.jpg | image_size = | caption = | birth_name = Frances Mary Allen | birth_date = 3 February 1912 | birth_place = Disley, England, UK | death_date = {{death-date and age|27 April 2013|3 February 1912}} | death_place = | death_cause = | other_names = | known_for = Expulsion from Rhodesia | education = | employer = | occupation = Youth worker, missionary, therapist | spouse = Guy Clutton-Brock | children = Sarah-Anne (1942)<ref name=mollyodnb/> (later Mrs Roschnik)<ref name=zimassoc>{{Cite journal|date=Summer 2012|title=Hero's daughter visits Oxford House|url=https://zimassoc.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/summer-newsletter-2012.pdf|journal=Zimbabwe Unbound}}</ref> }}
'''Frances Mary Clutton-Brock''' ({{nee}} Allen; 3 February 1912 – 27 April 2013), known as '''Molly Clutton-Brock''', was a British therapist and youth worker, noted for helping physically disabled children. She and her husband developed a racially integrated farm and Molly developed centres in Rhodesia and Botswana where disabled children could receive physical therapy. She and her husband were expelled from Rhodesia (subsequently Zimbabwe) for not supporting the white minority government.
==Life== Frances Mary Allen was born in Disley, Cheshire to Frances Hannah ({{nee}} Smalley) and John Nelson Allen. Her father was the director of a tobacco company but he died when she was a baby and he was in his forties. Clutton-Brock and her mother moved to Eastbourne on the south coast after her father's death.<ref name=mollyodnb/> Clutton-Brock went to school in Eastbourne but left quickly when she was fifteen and disappeared to the continent where she travelled around Europe. When Clutton-Brock returned she learned how to teach handicrafts and found work in the borstal service.<ref name=mollyodnb>{{Cite ODNB|title=BrockClutton-, Frances Mary (1912–2013)|url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-106901|access-date=5 February 2021|year=2004|language=en|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/106901}}</ref> She married Guy Clutton-Brock who was a probation officer working with borstals on 14 April 1934.<ref name=hubby>{{Cite ODNB|title=Brock, (Arthur) Guy Clutton- (1906–1995), agriculturist and political activist|url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-59788|access-date=6 February 2021|year = 2004|language=en|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/59788}}</ref>
The Clutton-Brocks lived in London at the Oxford House settlement during the Second World War and that was where their daughter, Sarah-Anne (later Mrs Roschnik), was born in 1942.<ref name=zimassoc/> Molly decided to study therapy that had been devised by Detleff Neumann-Neurode in the 1920s in Germany. This was a form of paediatric physical therapy based on remedial exercises and physiotherapy. It was claimed that conditions of spinal curvature (kyphosis and scoliosis) could be alleviated.<ref name=spine>{{Cite journal|last=Hertzman|first=Carl A.|date=1 April 1968|title=Detleff Neumann-Neurode Baby Gymnastics|url=https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/502635|journal=American Journal of Diseases of Children|language=en|volume=115|issue=4|pages=515|doi=10.1001/archpedi.1968.02100010517027|issn=0002-922X|url-access=subscription}}</ref>
===In Rhodesia=== In 1949, they travelled to Southern Rhodesia to work at the St Faith's farm and school in Rusape.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Molly Clutton-Brock |work=The Telegraph |date=3 July 2013 |access-date=14 February 2021 |url= https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10158042/Molly-Clutton-Brock.html}}</ref><ref name="thet_Moll">{{Cite web |first=Judith |last=Todd |title=Obituary: Guy Clutton-Brock |date=16 February 1995 |work=The Independent |access-date=14 February 2021 |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-guy-clutton-brock-1573319.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201228021044/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-guy-clutton-brock-1573319.html |archive-date=28 December 2020}}</ref> The farm was not thriving and the owners (the St Faith's charity) anticipated that it might be taken over by the Rhodesian government. It was anticipated that stronger management could be established, but instead a co-operative was formed. The co-operative grew crops, reared cattle and did some carving work.<ref name=school>{{Cite web|title=Our History – ST Faith's High School|url=http://www.stfaithshighschool.co.zw/fisco-history/|access-date=6 February 2021|language=en-US}}</ref>
The collective farm alarmed observers as it was not based on racial discrimination but on integration.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|date=22 October 2011|title=Obituary: Guy Clutton-Brock|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-guy-clutton-brock-1573319.html|access-date=5 February 2021|website=The Independent|language=en}}</ref> The district commissioner and the farm's neighbours were surprised that the home treated everyone on an equal basis. The farm became a location for talks and her husband was involved in drafting the constitution of the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress in 1957. Molly was teaching local nurses about the Neumann-Neurode techniques which could treat spine abnormalities.<ref name=spine/> She had started by treating children on a table and soon there was insufficient room for the child patients which included those with polio, muscular dystrophy and cerebral palsy, so the 35-bed Mukuwapasi Clinic was built.<ref name=mollyodnb/>
In 1960 she and Guy moved to Botswana, funded by the Africa Development Trust and the Mukuwapasi Clinic was thereafter run by Margaret Shumba (later Mrs. Chiwandamira).<ref name=semiblog>{{Cite web|title=Jairos Jiri|url=https://www.rhodesia.me.uk/jairos-jiri/|access-date=9 February 2021|website=Window on Rhodesia|language=en-GB}}</ref> Molly continued to train nurses and establish clinics based on the therapy she used on small children in Botswana. They returned to Rhodesia to live in "Cold Comfort Farm" just outside Salisbury, to find that nationalist leaders were in prison.<ref name=mollyodnb/> The farm was frequently raided by the authorities hoping to find weapons but all they found were people such as Robert Mugabe, Didymus Mutasa, and Moven Mahachi, discussing farming and politics.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Neustatter|first=Angela|date=28 February 2001|title=Dreams lie buried in a land of hate|url=http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/feb/28/zimbabwe.comment|access-date=6 February 2021|website=The Guardian|language=en}}</ref>
In 1966 she and David Hughes made a film of the Mukuwapasi Clinic, this film is preserved by the British Film Institute.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Mukuwapasi Clinic (1966)|url=https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b749f350f|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210209145025/https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b749f350f|url-status=dead|archive-date=9 February 2021|access-date=9 February 2021|website=BFI|language=en}}</ref>
===Return to England=== In 1971 Molly and her husband were stripped of their citizenship and deported. The organisation that they had founded was declared illegal.<ref name=mollyodnb/> The following year she and Guy published ''Cold Comfort Confronted''.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Clutton-Brock|first1=Guy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CLIcAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Molly+Clutton-Brock%22+cold|title=Cold Comfort Confronted|last2=Clutton-Brock|first2=Molly|date=1972|publisher=Mowbray|isbn=978-0-264-64601-5|language=en}}</ref> Returning to the UK, they lived in North Wales and when Rhodesia achieved independence as Zimbabwe they decided not to move back.<ref name=mollyodnb/>
In 1987, on the occasion of Guy's 80th birthday, a book of reminiscences was published in Zimbabwe. The book was titled ''Guy and Molly Clutton-Brock: Reminiscences from Their Family and Friends on the Occasion of Guy's Eightieth Birthday'' and was edited by Eileen Haddon.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Haddon|first=Eileen|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NlA0AQAAIAAJ|title=Guy and Molly Clutton-Brock: Reminiscences from Their Family and Friends on the Occasion of Guy's Eightieth Birthday|date=1987|publisher=Longman Zimbabwe|isbn=978-0-908308-22-4|language=en}}</ref> Guy died in 1995 and he was declared a "Hero of Zimbabwe". Molly died in 2013, aged 101.<ref name=mollyodnb/>
The Oxford House settlement has a plaque to the Clutton-Brocks.<ref name=zimassoc/>
==References== {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Brock-Clutton, Molly}} <!--article title has Brock-Clutton which apparently is incorrect; it should be Clutton-Brock--> Category:1912 births Category:2013 deaths Category:People from Disley Category:British Christian missionaries Category:British women centenarians Category:British physiotherapists Category:Rhodesian social workers Category:British expatriates in Rhodesia Category:Female Christian missionaries Category:Christian missionaries in Zimbabwe Category:Christian missionaries in Botswana Category:People deported from Rhodesia