George Vernon Hudson Information & George Vernon Hudson Links at HealthHaven.com

For other persons named George Hudson, see George Hudson (disambiguation).

Fuzzy head-and-shoulders photo of a 40-year-old man in a cloth cap and mustache

Hudson in 1907, as a member of the Auckland Islands Party of the Sub Antarctic Expedition.

Head-and-shoulders portrait of a sixtyish man in a wingtip collar and tie and a three-piece suit. He is nearly bald and wears a mustache. He looks directly at the viewer with the vestiges of a smile.

In later life

George Vernon Hudson (20 April 1867 – 5 April 1946) was an New Zealand entomologist.

Born in London, Hudson was the sixth child of Charles Hudson, an artist and stained-glass window designer. By the age of 14 he had already built up a collection of British insects, and had published a paper in The Entomologist. In 1881 Hudson moved with his father to Nelson, New Zealand. He worked on a farm, and in 1883, aged 16, he began working at the post office in Wellington, where he eventually became Chief Clerk, retiring in 1918.^[1]

Hudson's collection of insects is housed in the Te Papa Museum.

Although best known for his entomology, Hudson was also an astronomer, and invented daylight saving time. His shift-work job gave him leisure time to collect insects, and made him aware of the value of after-hours daylight.^[2] In 1895 he presented a paper to the Wellington Philosophical Society proposing a two-hour daylight-saving shift,^[3] and after considerable interest was expressed in Christchurch, New Zealand he followed up in an 1898 paper.^[4]