GENERAL DESCRIPTION: The Dominion Observatory was erected in 1907 as the observatory for the Government Time Service. The Time Service itself had been created in 1868 when a standard time was established for all New Zealand. In 1869 an observatory was erected in Wellington, in the Bolton Street cemetery reserve, above and behind the cemetery's consecrated ground. By the early 1900's, both the cemetery and the town were threatening to crowd the observatory out. In anticipation of this, provision had been made for the observatory to move to Kelburn at the urging of James Hector, Director of the Time Service (1869-1903). The 1891 Wellington Botanic Gardens Vesting Act incorporated Hector's proposal by permitting Government to appropriate an area in the south-eastern corner of the Gardens from the City Corporation as an observatory site. The new building was erected in 1907 on the site of the former Gardens Battery. It was named the Hector Observatory in recognition of the vast contribution made by Hector to the advancement of science in New Zealand. In 1925 the observatory, by then known as the Dominion Observatory, was incorporated in the newly formed Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and from that time also undertook responsibility for seismology. In 1938, as a result of lobbying by the New Zealand Institute, Wellington City Council and others, the Carter Observatory Act was passed. This observatory assumed responsibility for astronomical observations. It owes its existence to a bequest by Charles Carter, a prominent pioneer in the history of early Wellington and the Wairarapa. The third observatory is the Thomas King Observatory. It is named in honour of an early astronomer active in maintaining the Time Service during the nineteenth century. Below the Seismological Observatory building lie the remains of an old defence fortification known as the Gardens Battery. The Battery is one of a number constructed throughout Wellington at the time of the Russian scare of 1884-86. The fortifications were demolished at about the turn of the century and all that remains is the old powder magazine lying underground, now housing seismological and time-keeping equipment.