Archibald Richard Burdon Haldane

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(18 November 1900 – 18 October 1982) was a

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

social historian Social history, often called the new social history, is a field of history that looks at the lived experience of the past. In its "golden age" it was a major growth field in the 1960s and 1970s among scholars, and still is well represented in his ...

and

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...

. He was the son of Edith (née Nelson) and Sir William Haldane, grandson of

James Alexander Haldane The Rev James Alexander Haldane aka Captain James Haldane (14 July 1768 – 8 February 1851) was a Scottish independent church leader following an earlier life as a sea captain. Biography The youngest son of Captain James Haldane of Airth ...

, and nephew of

Richard Burdon Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane Richard Burdon Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane, (; 30 July 1856 – 19 August 1928) was a British lawyer and philosopher and an influential Liberal and later Labour politician. He was Secretary of State for War between 1905 and 1912 during whi ...

. His brother was

Graeme Haldane Thomas Graeme Nelson Haldane, known as Graeme Haldane (14 December 1897 – 24 June 1981), was a Scottish engineer. He was the son of Sir William Haldane and his wife Edith Nelson. He was a nephew of Elizabeth Haldane, Richard Burdon Haldane, 1 ...

and he married Janet Macrae Simpson-Smith. Like his father and uncles, he attended the Edinburgh Academy, after which he went up to

Balliol College, Oxford Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...

to read history. He returned to Scotland to enter his father's legal firm and acted for a time as Fiscal to the Society of Writers to the Signet. He then became involved in the Savings Bank movement and was at one stage vice-chairman of the Savings Bank Association. In 1982, he was appointed a

in recognition of his work for the bank. He was principally known, however, as a social historian and author, and for his seminal work on the drovers' roads of Scotland. In recognition for his work in this field, he was awarded the honorary degree of D Litt from the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

. He published two further books in this field, ''New Ways through the Glens'' and ''Three centuries of Scottish posts'', as well as several on his favourite pastime of trout fishing, of which he was passionately fond.

Selected bibliography

* ''By Many Waters'' - 1940 * ''The Path by the Water'' - 1944 * ''The Drove Roads of Scotland'' - 1952 * ''New Ways Through the Glens: Highland Road, Bridge and Canal Makers of the Early 19th Century'' - 1962 * ''Three Centuries of Scottish Posts: an Historical Survey to 1836'' - 1971 * ''By River, Stream and Loch: Thirty Years with a Trout Rod'' - 1973 * ''Great Fishmonger of the Tay: John Richardson of Perth and Pitfour, 1760-1821'' - 1981

References

* ''175 Accies'' by Bill Stirling, 1999 {{DEFAULTSORT:Haldane, A. R.B. 1900 births 1982 deaths Scottish scholars and academics People educated at Edinburgh Academy A. R.B.