Thomas Chandler Haliburton

Life

On 17 December 1796, Thomas Chandler Haliburton was born in Windsor, Nova Scotia, the son of William Hersey Otis Haliburton, a lawyer, judge and political figure, and Lucy Chandler Grant. As a small child, his mother died. At the age of seven his father remarried to Susanna Davis. Davis was the daughter of Michael Francklin, who had been Nova Scotia's Lieutenant Governor. As an adolescent, he attended University of King's College in Windsor. After graduating, he became a lawyer, opening a practice in Annapolis Royal, the former capital of the colony.

While Haliburton gained a reputation as a local businessman and as a judge, his greatest fame came from writing. He wrote a number of books on history, politics, and farm improvement. He rose to international fame with his Clockmaker serial, which first appeared in the Novascotian and later published as a book throughout the British Empire, becoming popular light reading. The work recounted the humorous adventures of the character Sam Slick.

In 1816, he married Lousia Nevill, daughter of Captain Laurence Neville, of the Eighth Light Dragoons.

Between 1826 and 1829, Haliburton represented Annapolis County in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly.

In 1856, Haliburton retired from law and moved to England. In the same year, he married Sarah Harriet Owen Williams. In 1859, Haliburton was elected the Member of Parliament for Launceston, Cornwall as a member of the Conservative minority; he did not stand for re-election in 1865.

Haliburton received an honorary degree from Oxford for his services to literature. He continued writing until his death on 27 August 1865, at his home in Isleworth, near London.)

Family

While in England, Thomas Chandler Haliburton met Louisa Neville, daughter of Captain Laurence Neville, of the Eighth Light Dragoons. In 1816, he married her, soon thereafter returning to Nova Scotia with her. Louisa's story before marriage is related in the "Haliburton Chaplet," edited by their son, Robert Grant Haliburton (Toronto: 1899). The couple had two sons and five daughters:

In 1840, Louisa died and was buried at Windsor.

Legacy

Haliburton was eager to promote immigration to the colonies of British North America. One of his first written works was an emigrant's guide to Nova Scotia published in 1823, A General Description of Nova Scotia; Illustrated by a New and Correct Map The community of Haliburton, Nova Scotia was named after him. In Ontario, Haliburton County is named after Haliburton in recognition of his work as the first chair of the Canadian Land and Emigration Company.

In 1884, faculty and students at his alma mater founded a literary society in honour of the College's most celebrated man of letters. The Haliburton Society, still active at the University of King's College, Halifax, is the longest-standing collegial literary society throughout the Commonwealth of Nations and North America.

The mention "hurly on the long pond on the ice", which appears in the second volume of The Attaché, or Sam Slick in England, a work of fiction published in 1844, has been interpreted by some as a reference to a hockey-like game he may have played during his years at King's College. It is the basis of Windsor's disputed claim to being the town that fathered hockey.

In 1902, a memorial to Haliburton and his first wife was erected in Christ Church, Windsor, by four of their children: Laura Cunard, Lord Haliburton, and two surviving sisters.

Nova Scotian artist William Valentine painted Haliburton's portrait.

Works