Robert Grant Haliburton was born on June 3, 1831, in Windsor, Nova Scotia.

He was a Canadian lawyer and anthropologist. He graduated from the University of King's College and was part of the local volunteer militia where he rose to the rank of Lieutenant-colonel. He was a lawyer, called to the bar in 1853. He established a practice in Halifax and shortly after became interpreter and translator of German and French in the Vice-Admiralty Court. In 1868, he became famous after founding the Canada First organization that saw English Canadian society as the "heirs of Aryan northmen" and the French Canadian and Métis cultures as a "bar to progress." In 1876, he was elected a Queen's Counsel and appointed to the council of the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society. He spent some time in Ottawa in the late 1860s and resided in England from 1871 to 1876. In 1877, he set up practice in Ottawa, but ill health forced him to abandon it in 1881 and spend his winters in warm climates. He lived for a considerable time in Jamaica, where he successfully promoted a remedial act to improve the poor-relief system, a measure that was eventually adopted by the other British West Indian colonies. During his later years, Haliburton primarily pursued scientific and anthropological interests.

He died on March 6, 1901, in Pass Christian, Mississippi.