Scott's Link with the gardens to be remembered

The last remaining building, now a workshop, erected as part of a Magnetic Observatory for the 1901-04 Antarctic Expedition led by Captain Robert Scott. A photograph of the original building that housed the observatory. An instrument in the old Magnetic Observatory. Captain Scott

A small, weather-board building in the Botanic Gardens, unnoticed by most visitors, marks the former site of a Magnetic Observatory that had direct links to the 1901-04 Antarctic Expedition by Captain Robert Scott.

The last remaining building, now a workshop, is to be transformed into a museum in recognition of the observatory's 70-year operation from the site.

This will begin in December with an exhibition in the gardens to mark the 100th anniversary of the erection of the first buildings in 1901.

Its origins for the site go back to 1898 when the Australasian Society for the Advancement of Science decided that a magnetic observatory was needed in the vicinity of New Zealand. These requirements were met in time for Captain Scott’s Antarctic expedition's arrival in Lyttelton in the ship Discovery in 1901.

Had Christchurch not responded promptly to the call, an observatory at Melbourne would have been the site for the expedition.

The Christchurch observatory was the fourth built in the Southern Hemisphere and was operated on the site until 1969.

The original magnetic survey base station had an administration building, a magnetograph cellar and the absolute magnetic house.

The workshop building has a concrete floor that contains a gravity benchmark as part of the New Zealand Primary Gravity Network. In 1881, a climatological station was relocated from the grounds of the Provincial Council to a site in the gardens.

Captain Scott's 1901 expedition was essentially a scientific one with the aims of conducting a magnetic survey (to find the true magnetic south), and also carry out research in meteorology, oceanography, geology, biology and "physical investigations." Further the expedition had to determine the extent of "south polar lands."

To achieve all that, Scott needed the help of the magnetic observatory in the Botanic Gardens.

After Scott's 1901 expedition he used it again in 1910.

In 1907 Sir Ernest Shackleton in Nimrod calibrated his instruments at the observatory and in that same year the Carnegie Institute visited on the first of numerous Antarctic expeditions.

A steering group of people who worked at the station or their spouses who did so, and others interested in the old observatory has met to plan a memorial exhibition.

Memorabilia has been collected (and more is welcomed) for the temporary exhibition to be held in the Botanic Gardens Information Centre in December and January.

Later the exhibition material will be taken from the information centre to form a permanent museum of Magnetic Observatory in the old workshop.

This museum will stand in memorial to the science carried out on the site and to the people who worked there.

Visiting the museum will be by joining tours of the gardens or by appointment.

In the next few months gardens staff will be busy trying to locate memoirs of people who worked in the observatory, photographs and even some of the instruments used.

Contact: Sue Molloy or Anne Dobbs, Botanic Gardens: 364 7584 or 364 7592.