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Poor information flow appears to have robbed New Zealand and Hector of the international recognition and prestige that was, and still is, deserved. Nearly 40 years passed before the publication of a mistake in a 1901 issue of The Observatory allowed Hector to bring some of his achievements back into the light.111 The article stated that time in New Zealand was 11 hours fast of Greenwich. Hector, then 67, wrote a letter of correction, the speed of which is noteworthy, as barely five months later it was published. Given that the Journal travelled by sea mail to New Zealand and Hector replied by sea mail, it indicates a great deal of pride on his part in his achievement and an urgent need to see it correctly recorded internationally. Hector sent the journal‟s editor a copy of the Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute, and the journal in turn published an ambivalent acknowledgment.112 “This time was adopted by the New Zealand Government as far back as the year 1868, when the present Time-Ball Observatory was established [the date was actually 1864], so that New Zealand may be considered as possibly the first country to take up the zone-time system, if we consider zones differing from Greenwich by an odd number of half- hours to properly come within that scheme.”113 _{Hector‟s letter to The Observatory} reminded readers of another internationally significant contribution he had made. The article ended, “He also tells us that in 1860 he pointed out the modification of time reckoning that would be necessary on the long route of the Canadian Pacific Railway.”114

Thomas King, probably motivated by The Observatory’s mistake, wrote a comprehensive report for the Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand

Institute in 1902.115

In 1876, Sanford Fleming engineer-in-chief of the Canadian Pacific Railway published a memoir titled Terrestrial Time which advocated the use of a 24 hour

111 _{„Universal Time‟, in Observatory, vol. 24 (Feb.1901), p. 90.} 112 _{Hector, pp. 48-9.}

113

„The Time of New Zealand,‟ in Observatory, vol. 24 (Jul. 1901) p. 291. There are 29 time zones in the world.

114 _{Ibid. This contradicts other authors, in particular Derek Howse, pp. 121-7, who credits Professor}

Charles Ferdinand Dowd, in 1870, with creating the system and explaining it in a 107-page pamphlet he published. R. Burnett, „The Life and Work of Sir James Hector‟, MA Thesis (Otago, University of New Zealand, 1936), p. 5, states a possible reason for the mistake. “The Palliser Expedition was in Western Canada, while all those who publish researches on such topics in Canada live in the east, where the bulk of the population is located. Hence this expedition has never received the publicity it deserves.” In 1922, the problem was further compounded when Palliser‟s own journals were destroyed by fire when rebels attacked his home in Ireland.

clock system and a uniform system of time zones for the whole world. Irene Spry notes that Fleming “always took Palliser‟s report with him on his survey trips; he found it of great use.” Fleming was aware of Hector‟s time zone proposal.116

Fleming in his book did not name Hector as the originator of the idea and as a result he himself gained the international recognition. A recent biography (2002), by Clark Blaise, Time

Lord: Sir Sandford Fleming and the Creation of a Standard Time, has no reference to

Spry‟s book on the Palliser expedition, the Palliser/Hector report, or the institution of a standard, Greenwich-based mean time under Hector‟s influence in New Zealand in 1868.117

It is not surprising that internationally the achievement of Hector and his team in 1868 appears to have remained largely unknown to the outside world as most New Zealanders were ignorant of it too. A writer to the Wanganui Herald in 1898 thought that the meridian passed through Wellington and was surprised to read that it did not.118 Another 1898 reference appeared in the Timaru Herald, which quoted a

Southland Daily News correspondent who also believed that the meridian was the

longitude of Wellington.119 Interestingly The Observatory’s 1901 error reared its head again a decade later in an issue of Nature (1911).120 The article quoted Hazell’s

Annual, which stated that New Zealand was 11 hours ahead of Greenwich, when it

was in fact 11½ hours ahead. G. Hogben of the Seismological Observatory in Wellington wrote to Nature, which published a correction in the October 1911 issue.121 Even in the late 1990s, Howse incorrectly stated that New Zealand adopted the Greenwich meridian in 1895, whilst Sobel and Andrewes omit New Zealand‟s historic link to Greenwich.122 The omission of New Zealand‟s achievements from British history does not surprise Pocock (1975). He argues that histories of subordinate nations are regarded as less authoritative than those of great powers

116

Spry, p. 288. See also Howse, pp. 121-125 and 129. It is unknown whether Hector indicated Canada could be linked to GMT.

117 _{C. Blaise, Time Lord: Sir Sandford Fleming and the Creation of a Standard Time (New York,}

2002).

118

WH, vol. XXXII, no. 9424 (29 Apr. 1898), p. 2.

119 _{TH, vol. LX, no. 2705 (16 May 1898), p. 5.}

120 _{„Standard Time in France‟, in Nature, vol. 87 (Mar. 1911), page unknown.} 121 _{Ibid., vol. 87 (Oct. 1911), p. 516.}

122 _{D. Howse, Table III, pp. 154-155. Australia adopted GMT in 1895 and Howse possibly linked New}

Zealand mistakenly with Australia. See also D. Sobel and W.J.H. Andrewes, The Illustrated Longitude (London, 1998), for no reference to New Zealand.

because New Zealand “society is less centrally and bureaucratically organised.”123 New Zealand therefore lacked the power to exert influence over England‟s record of history.