The son of a cotton mill owner called Arthur William and his wife, a vicar's daughter Agnes Louisa, he was born in
Didsbury,
Manchester, and educated at
St Edward's School, Oxford, before going on to study modern history at
Merton College, where he graduated honours (second class) in 1897. He joined the
Royal Naval College, Osborne, in 1905, shortly after its foundation, making up for the lack of a textbook by producing his own
Sea Kings of Britain (3 vols., 1907–11) and being promoted to head of English and history in January 1913. In 1920 he became the
Society for Nautical Research's honorary secretary and treasurer, and remained so until his death. A building to house the collection was also soon found when the
Queen's House at Greenwich was vacated by the
Royal Hospital School, and so in 1934 the government passed the National Maritime Museum Act, making Callender the museum's first director. The Queen's House was restored, galleries prepared within it, and further objects collected and arranged, all with Callender's energetic participation, and opening came only 3 years after the Act, in 1937. Callender never married. He was knighted in 1938, and up until his sudden death in 1946 (which occurred in the National Maritime Museum) continued to make acquisitions and improvements to the museum's collection. He was buried in
Charlton Cemetery. In his
Dictionary of National Biography entry
Michael Lewis wrote that Callender: == Works ==