He was the son of James Callander, and Katherine Mackenzie, daughter of Sir Kenneth Mackenzie of Cromarty.
The preface by James Maidment to Letters from Thomas Percy, D.D., afterwards Bishop of Dromore, John Callander of Craigforth, Esq., and others, to George Paton, which appeared at Edinburgh in 1830, indicates that in his latter years Callendar was reclusive, and a religious melancholic.