With six other siblings, the family lived at Dochgarroch Lodge, Inverness between 1861 and 1871 and moved to Brunton House in Wiltshire around 1881.
Mollison moved to India, where he served as superintendent of the experimental farms in 1890[1] and was appointed technical director of agriculture for the Bombay Presidency in 1892.
He published pamphlets on topics related to agriculture, writing on the cultivation of betel, cardamom and pepper in Kanara in 1900.
Mollison married Edith Mary, daughter of James McRae, a leather maker in Surrey, in 1901.
[4] They returned to England after his retirement and lived at Ascotts, Felbridge, Surrey.