If a nation is an ‘imagined community’ then one of the people who first imagined Malawi was Alexander Hetherwick. He stood, of course, in the tradition of David Livingstone who had first thought of an initiative to defeat the slave trade in Central Africa by introducing Christianity, commerce and civilisation. He was always ready to acknowledge that the vision he had for the Mission derived from what the great explorer had started. Not for nothing did he give his history of the Mission the subtitle ‘How Livingstone's Dream Came True’. He was also greatly informed and influenced by the people of the land and their aspirations, not least the Makololo who had allied themselves with Livingstone and who were prominent at Blantyre Mission during his early years. Hetherwick's distinctive part in the process was to be in leadership at the time when the dreamt-of country actually came into being. As various forces jostled for influence, he had to imagine what kind of country it was going to be and to advocate his vision when there were other forces working to take the country in a different direction.

One thing that remained very clear in Hetherwick's mind was that the emerging country must be very different from the territories south of the Zambezi. It was partly his disaffection with the racial attitudes of the settlers in South Africa that propelled Livingstone to travel northwards seeking territory where the direction being taken by South Africa would not prevail. This left its mark on Hetherwick throughout the entire time of his leadership at Blantyre Mission. A trivial but revealing episode occurred during Hetherwick's second spell on the Legislative Council from 1922 to 1925 when it was proposed to change the time of the Protectorate from ‘Zomba mean time’ to ‘the Standard time of South Africa’ with effect from 1 July 1924. Hetherwick's handwritten note on the paper proposing the ordinance states tersely: ‘Not in favour of this ordinance: why should we follow SA time. Nyasaland is no part of SA and I trust never will be any part of SA.