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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Murray Buckman
Date: 2024 Jan 31, 17:03 -0800
Hi David,
The extract referencing the time ball is probably from the 1870s – you can confirm or correct me. Arther Stock was the “Observer” at that time.
The sights referred to would have been star transits, taken from the Colonial Time Service Observatory, which was in place from 1869 until it was demolished in 1906. The Seddon Memorial now stands on the spot.
For those unfamiliar with Wellington this is on a small hill rising behind the city center and is just 450 meters or so from New Zealand’s current Parliament Buildings.
My grandmother grew up about 1km from the spot and was a small child at the time it was demolished. For a while in my childhood, I lived about 2km away. Somewhere I have a photograph of my grandfather playing cricket, around 1923, at Anderson Park, just feet from where the Colonial Time Service Observatory had stood.
I now live 6,254 nautical miles away.
