National Biography|access-date=20 June 2016|archive-date=29 March 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190329120443/http://oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/50182?rskey=dTXFr9&result=1|url-status=dead}}</ref> William Haliburton and Mary Foster had two sons, James and another who died in infancy. Burton's paternal great-grandparents were Rev. James Haliburton (1681 – 1756) and Margaret Eliott (who was the daughter of Sir William Eliott, 2nd Baronet and the aunt of George Augustus Eliott, 1st Baron Heathfield). James Burton's father William was descended from John Haliburton (1573 – 1627) from whom Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was descended on the maternal side. Burton was a cousin of the Canadian author and British Tory MP Thomas Chandler Haliburton, and of Lord Haliburton, who was the first Canadian to be raised to the Peerage of the United Kingdom. James (b. 1761) was christened with the name 'James Haliburton' at Presbyterian Chapel, Soho, London. He shortened his surname to Burton in 1794, and between the birth of his fourth child and the birth of his fifth child. Education James was educated at a day school in Covent Garden before he was privately tutored, including in architecture. In July 1776 he was articled to a surveyor named James Dalton, with whom he remained for six years, until 1782, when he commenced with speculative construction projects, in some of which Dalton was his partner. Significant property developments Bloomsbury: including Foundling Hospital Estate, which included Brunswick Square, Guilford Street, and Mecklenburgh Square(on which he built 600 houses); Bedford Square; Bloomsbury Square (where the remaining north side are Burton's original houses); Russell Square; Bedford Place; Montague Street; Tavistock Square; Tavistock House (for himself); and Cartwright Gardens (which were originally named Burton Street and Burton Crescent). St John's Wood Regent Street: Burton built 191 of the houses of Regent Street, and their joining archways. Five of the largest blocks of Regent Street were purchased by Burton in 1817. Burton's houses on Regent Street are No. 4 to No. 12; No. 17 to No. 25; No. 106 to No. 128; No. 132 to No. 154; No. 133 to No. 167; No. 171 to No. 195; and No. 295 to No. 319. These were built, together with Carlton Chambers, between 1817 and 1820. He also built between Leicester Street and No. 129 Swallow Street in 1820. He built the east side of Regent Street in 1821, and the west side of Regent Street, specifically the part between the Quadrant and Oxford Street, and its archways, in 1822. He built north of Old Burlington