[3][1] Born in Fifeshire, Scotland, Lindsay's family arrived in Hawaii to settle in Kauai on his tenth birthday.
Lindsay attended the public schools of Kauai until 1887, when he moved to Honolulu, where he worked as an interpreter in a law office.
from the University of Michigan in 1902, and in 1903 Hawaii Governor Sanford B. Dole appointed Lindsay to the office of district magistrate of Honolulu.
He resigned to enter private practice, but in 1910 was appointed Attorney General of Hawaii, remaining in that office until 1913.
In 1922, he was appointed by Governor Walter F. Frear to the Territorial Supreme Court of Hawaii, for a term set to expire later in 1926, but he died suddenly while travelling in Sydney, Australia.