王室天文官
Hunter became Deputy Director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory in 1967. When the Astronomer Royal, Sir Richard Woolley, retired in 1971, the United Kingdom government chose to split the post of Astronomer Royal from the observatory. The Astronomer Royal had been director of the Greenwich Observatory from its foundation in 1675 up to this time, but the government appointed Margaret Burbidge as Director, with the post of Astronomer Royal becoming an honorary title from then on. Hunter served as acting director of the observatory until Burbidge's arrival in 1972.