Our study of the growth of Australia's meteorological services has served not only to delineate this aspect of the history of science in federating Australia, but also to expose hitherto neglected links with the history of federalism itself. In particular, developments internal to the science of meteorology created demands for co-operation across the political boundaries between the colonies. Nor was meteorology alone in this, since similar pressures emerged in the administration of the postal and telegraph systems, in defence procurement, and perhaps in other contexts. No sooner had the separate colonies achieved self-government than technical considerations arising in such fields began to pull them together. While these consideratons did not suffice to bring about a political federation—they certainly did not suffice in Europe, where the same technical considerations, apart from those relating to defence, applied—in the Australian case, where the peoples of the different colonies already had much in common, they undoubtedly helped create a climate of opinion favouring such a development. The role played in the federation story by these technical considerations, and by the technical experts in the colonial government bureaucracies—Ellery, Russell, Todd and the New Zealander, Hector, in the case considered here—who saw the need for cross-border co-operation and established mechanisms to secure it, warrants more attention.

Bureau of Meteorology