His father was Judge Haliburton who wrote the best selling Clockmaker series about the humorous adventures of the Sam Slick character.

Like his father he graduated from University of King's College and was part of the local volunteer militia where he rose to the rank of Lieutenant-colonel.

Ontario residents, George Denison, Charles Mair, William Alexander Foster and Robert Grant Haliburton founded the movement.

[3] Haliburton and like minded authors that made up the Canada First movement saw that the milder southern climate was said to lead to "degeneration, decay, and effeminacy.

After a lucrative career in law he was able to live off his investments and spent some time as an anthropologist and was instrumental in discovering the "dwarf races" of northern Africa and the Atlas region.