In September 1892 Hector was appointed drawing master at Gordon College but in the mid-1890s went to study at the Académie Julien in Paris and also stayed for a while in an artists’ colony in Brittany. In 1898 he joined the Aberdeen School of Design (est. 1892) at 26 Union Row, where he ran a teaching studio shared with the sculptor W. H. Buchan. The School appears originally to have been primarily for artisans: in 1900 Hector was listed as ‘Master’ and in 1903 as its ‘Principal’. At that point, probably informally since the legal arrangement was signed in 1905 and amalgamation completed in 1907, the School became part of the Aberdeen Provincial Training Centre (APTC) – and Hector the latter’s principal lecturer in art, still in the Union Row premises – as part of a reorganisation of local teacher-training that combined the Aberdeen United Free Church Training College and the Aberdeen Church of Scotland Training College. Professor Salmond, already noted, was third Principal of the former and also Chairman of the School of Design from its inception, which suggests an early link between them and that Salmond had some part in Hector’s career.

Hector remained with the APTC for thirty years exercising a ‘wide influence in shaping the method of teaching art in schools throughout the north and in many parts of Scotland….As an artist he showed remarkable versatility in his work. He painted with equal facility and talent in oils and water colour, and he was as happy as a portrait painter as he was in landscape and seascape work’ (obituary, Aberdeen Press and Journal, 5th June 1940). He also exhibited – mostly landscapes – at Glasgow, Liverpool, the Royal Academy (in 1916 and 1935) and especially the Royal Scottish Academy, showing 24 paintings there. In addition, he was a keen Francophile, spoke good French and was an active early member of the Aberdeen Franco-Scottish Society, including serving for a long time as its secretary. His friendship with Jules Desseignet (see above) began when the latter and his wife also joined after arriving to teach French in Aberdeen in 1911. Desseignet was an assistant lecturer at the University until recalled to France for First World War military service in 1914.

On 14th September 1917, when rising 49, Hector also volunteered for the wartime Army and served in Royal Flying Corps ground staff. He was briefly – probably for training purposes – at the Unit 4 Aircraft Acceptance Park, Lincoln, until sent to France with the British Expeditionary Force on 1st November, perhaps because of his fluency in French. At the RAF’s creation on 1st April 1918, he transferred to it and was reclassified as an Air Mechanic 3rd Class on 28th August until demobilised on 30th December, receiving the War and Victory medals

On 11th July 1906 at St Machar, Aberdeen, Hector had married Maggie (Margaret) Jane Simpson Badenoch: his obituary also calls her a ‘distinguished artist’, perhaps London trained since she reportedly studied pottery as a student at the Victoria and Albert Museum. From 1907/1908 onward they lived at 41 Salisbury Terrace, Aberdeen. Both painted Scottish landscapes and also travelled abroad to some extent. The Book of St Fittick presented to St Fittick’s Church, Aberdeen, in 1901 included some of Hector’s line drawings and he also designed a few stained-glass windows. One was a war memorial to former pupils of the Gordon Schools, Huntly, which was unveiled in 1921. He did another window at Nigg Church, Tain, and, in 1923, a three-panel memorial window to Robert Whyte Thomson, a local glove and hosiery manufacturer, at the new church of St Ninian, Aberdeen (details in the Aberdeen Press and Journal, 23rd March 1923). About 1902–1903, he also designed a religious mural above the chancel arch of St John the Evangelist, Aberdeen, probably because of friendship with a Mr Whyte, who ran the decorating firm that sponsored it: although credited to Hector, no payment to him is recorded.

In 1930/1931 the APTC, apparently including Hector’s teaching studio, relocated from Union Row to 259 Union Street, Aberdeen. He retired from the Centre on 23rd June 1933 but in 1939–1940 briefly had another studio in Marischal Street. He died, aged 71, on 4th June 1940 at Kepplestone Mansion, a local nursing home, which suggests a period of final illness. His wife followed, aged 78, in March 1947: the single landscape oil by Hector in Aberdeen Art Gallery, of Alnack Water, was presented in that year by her executors.

The Hectors do not appear to have had children. Gertrude Mary Hector (1888 –1972), Aberdonian jewellery designer and author of several books on the Arts and Crafts movement, was daughter of the Revd John Hector, DD, of Duff College, Calcutta, and his wife Margaret Pittendrigh. They married in Calcutta in 1876, where Gertrude was also born.

Summarised from Art UK’s Art Detective discussion ‘Could anyone tell us more about Professor Jules Desseignet?’ and from www.circlecity.co.uk's 'World War Forum' there cited.