Arthur Haliburton was born in
Windsor, Nova Scotia, on 26 December 1832. He was a son of the Anglo-Canadian author and barrister and British MP,
Thomas Chandler Haliburton, by Louisa Neville, who was the daughter of Captain Laurence Neville. His elder brother was the Canadian anthropologist and barrister
Robert Grant Haliburton. Arthur Haliburton graduated from the
University of King's College, Nova Scotia, with a Doctor of Civil Law (DCL). He was called to the bar, in Nova Scotia, in 1855, but was commissioned into the British Army as a civil commissary, as which he served in Turkey during the
Crimean War, and in Canada, and in London, before his appointment, in 1869, as Assistant Director of Supplies and Transports, at which he resigned his commission and formally entered the Civil Service. ==Civil Service career==