Gordon Matthews Hector was born on 9 Jun 1918, the son of Dr George Pittendreigh Hector, Indian Agricultural Service. He was educated at St Mary's, Melrose, the Edinburgh Academy and, 1936-1939, Lincoln College, Oxford. His plans for further academic studies, after graduating with a BA in Modern History, were interrupted by the outbreak of war. He served with the Army from 1939 to 1945, in East Africa, Abyssinia (Ethiopia), and Madagascar, as well as in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), India, and Burma (Myanmar).

On his return to the United Kingdom, Mr Hector became MA, and in 1946 joined the Colonial Overseas Service as a cadet in Kenya. From 1946 to 1949, he was in the Northern Frontier Province, and became District Commissioner of Wajir District in 1948. In 1950, he was transferred to Nairobi, becoming Assistant Secretary and, in 1951, Secretary to the Kenya Road Authority. He left Kenya in 1952 to take up the post of Government Secretary in the Seychelles; he served there until 1955, for a period in 1953 acting as Governor, and was awarded the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire). In 1954, he married Dr Mary Forrest Gray; they had three children.

In 1956, they were transferred to Basutoland (Lesotho), where Mr Hector became Deputy Resident Commissioner and Government Secretary, a post that was redesignated 'Chief Secretary' in 1964 and 'Deputy British Government Representative' in 1965. When the Basutoland National Council was inaugurated as a Legislative Council on 12 Mar 1960, he was appointed Leader of the House, a position he held until the new Constitution was formed in 1965. In Oct 1966, he left the Lesotho Government, and later accepted a post on the administrative staff of the University of Aberdeen. Dr Mary Hector, a graduate of that University, assisted in the medical services of the Seychelles and Basutoland (Lesotho), where she established the pathology laboratory of the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital.