Old photograph of Sir James Hector, born at 11 Danube Street, on 16 March 1834, in Stockbridge, Edinburgh, Scotland. He attended the Edinburgh Academy from 1844 to 1845. At 14, he began articles as an actuary at his father's office. He joined University of Edinburgh as a medical student and received his medical degree in 1856 at the age of 22. Shortly after receiving his medical degree, upon the recommendation of Sir Roderick Murchison, director-general of the British Geological Survey, Hector was appointed geologist on the Palliser Expedition under the command of John Palliser. The goal of the Palliser expedition to Canada was to explore new railway routes for the Canadian Pacific Railway and to collect new species of plants. Following his return to Britain after the Palliser expedition, Hector again secured a paid scientific position with Roderick Murchison’s help. In April 1862 he arrived in Dunedin in New Zealand to conduct a three-year geological survey of Otago, soon after the discovery of gold there. Hector managed the Colony's premier scientific society, the New Zealand Institute, for thirty-five years, and from 1885 was Chancellor of the University of New Zealand. Hector retired in 1903, after four decades at the centre of organised science in New Zealand. He was President of the Royal Society of New Zealand between 1906 and 1907; preceded by Frederick Wollaston Hutton and followed by George Malcolm Thomson. He died in Lower Hutt, New Zealand, in 1907, and was buried at Taita Cemetery.
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