[1] He was born the son of Henry Haddon-Smith and educated at the Victoria College, Jersey.
He joined the colonial service and was posted to West Africa where he was the political officer of the Ashanti Field Force and served with the Hausa force against the Jebu tribe in 1892.
He was acting Governor of The Gambia in 1901 and then served as Colonial Secretary of Sierra Leone for 11 years.
[5] On his retirement he settled in Exmouth, Devon, dying of a spinal tumour in 1931.
Their first son, Walter Basil, was killed as a captain in the First World War.