Thomas Chandler Haliburton (17 December 1796 – 27 August 1865) was a Nova Scotian politician, judge, and author. He made an important political contribution to the state of Nova Scotia before its entry into Confederation of Canada. He was the first international best-selling author of fiction from what is now Canada. In 1856, he immigrated to England, where he served as a Conservative Member of Parliament. He was the father of the British civil servant Lord Haliburton and of the anthropologist Robert Grant Haliburton. Life On 17 December 1796, Thomas Chandler Haliburton was born in Windsor, Nova Scotia, to William Hersey Otis Haliburton, a lawyer, judge and political figure, and Lucy Chandler Grant. His mother died when he was a small child. When Thomas was seven, his father married Susanna Davis, the daughter of Michael Francklin, who had been Nova Scotia's Lieutenant Governor. He attended University of King's College in Windsor, from which he graduated in 1815. Later he became a lawyer and opened a practice in Annapolis Royal, the former capital of the colony. Haliburton attained distinction as a local businessman and as a judge, but his greatest fame came from his published writings. He wrote a number of books on history, politics, and farm improvement. He first rose to international fame with his Clockmaker serial, which first appeared in the Novascotian and was later published as a book throughout the British Empire, as popular light reading. The work recounted the humorous adventures of the main character, Sam Slick. In 1816, Haliburton married Lousia Nevill, daughter of Captain Laurence Neville, of the Eighth Light Dragoons. Between 1826 and 1829, Haliburton represented Annapolis County in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly. Relations with English Burton family Thomas Chandler Haliburton resided in England from 1837, where he was hosted and entertained in London by his cousins Decimus Burton, Jane Burton, James Burton, the Egyptologist, Septimus Burton, the solicitor, Octavia Burton, and Jessy Burton. Thomas asked James Burton, the Egyptologist, to check the proofs of his work Letter Bag of the Great Western, with which Burton was unimpressed, in 1839, and those of the third series of The Clockmaker in 1840. The pair travelled together to Scotland to investigate their common ancestry, and intended to tour Canada and the United States of America together. Thomas Chandler Haliburton's daughter, Susannah, was impressed by James Burton, the Egyptologist: she wrote, in 1839, "Mr James