Haliburton, Thomas Chandler

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Fred Cogswell, “HALIBURTON, THOMAS CHANDLER,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 9, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/haliburton_thomas_chandler_9E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Politician, judge, and author; b. 17 Dec. 1796 at Windsor, N.S., the son of William Hersey Otis Haliburton and Lucy Chandler Grant; d. 27 Aug. 1865 at Isleworth, Middlesex, England.
    • Haliburton’s inherent toryism was given a strong anti-republican bias through the sufferings of his mother’s people, the Grants, during the American War of Independence, and by their tragic death at sea while en route to Saint John, N.B., to settle loyalist claims.
    • Haliburton was educated at King’s Collegiate School in Windsor, N.S., and later at King’s College, Windsor, from which he graduated in 1815. There an indoctrination into the correct principles upon which the tory Anglican establishment was based was confirmed by his association with the sons of leading professional men in the Atlantic colonies who were being prepared to take their fathers’ places.
    • Haliburton’s political life fits into these circumstances with a remarkable inevitability. In 1820 he was admitted to the bar and began a lucrative law practice at Annapolis Royal. Six years later he became the mha for Annapolis Royal in the Nova Scotian assembly. From 1826 to 1829 he conducted himself in that house as befitted a tory who had as much regard for the responsibilities as for the rights of privilege, and who was sufficiently free from dependence upon patronage to exercise his personal independence. Thus he took sides with the governor and the Council in supporting the right of Britain to regulate such matters as commerce and crown lands. 
    • Haliburton’s literary work was varied and abundant. Considering the demands of his more important creative works, and his other public responsibilities, Haliburton managed to put an amazing amount of time into the compilation and composition of histories, pamphlets, and anthologies, which alone would have given him a considerable reputation among 19th-century colonial writers.
    • Haliburton’s international and enduring reputation as a writer, however, is based on The clockmaker; or, the sayings and doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville, of which 22 instalments had appeared in the Novascotian newspaper before a book of that title was issued by Joseph Howe at Halifax in 1836.
    • Like all colonists the Nova Scotians were slower than the inhabitants of the metropolis to honour one of their own. In 1858 Oxford University awarded Haliburton the honorary degree of dcl for services to literature. He was the first colonial to receive that degree. In fact, he was more than that. He was the only colonial in the 19th century to achieve an international reputation in literature, and it is doubtful whether any writings from British North America, have since been able to make the impact upon the English speaking world which Haliburton’s works have. These factors help us to understand Haliburton’s success, but, as in all work that captures the human imagination on a large scale, much credit must be given to that indefinable yet magnetic individuality which for want of a better term we call genius.
  • Grandson of Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory –https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=3275
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/47342752/thomas-chandler-haliburton