Born November 19, 1873, he was the youngest son of Charles Sillem Lidderdale. He joined the British South Africa Police in 1896, thereby qualifying as an early settler in Rhodesia, retiring in 1924. In 1897 he saw active service at the taking of Mashayangombi's Kraal, which Plumer's Column, through lack of time, had failed to reduce. During the Boer War he was again in the field, under Colonel Flint, who, besides the B.S.A. Police, had the Leicester Yeomanry with him to quell a small outbreak caused by an outlaw named Mapondera.

He married Mary (Molly) Charlotte Scobie, daughter of MacKay John Scobie Mackenzie of Kyeburn, New Zealand. He was born at Tain, Rossshire and represented Mount Ida in the New Zealand Parliament, being a prominent member of the Opposition. His life was written by Sheila MacDonald, his daughter, the novelist.

He brought out in 1950 the Account or the Lowland Scots Family of Lidderdale, the foundation for the present work. His memory and formidable physical strength broke down in the last two years of his life, when Molly devotedly cared for him. He died in 1954 and she, in 1965, remaining vivacious, warm-hearted and plucky even when increasingly ill in her last years.

There were two sons, the first dying in infancy and the second, Tancred William Halliday Lidderdale, born 8 Sep 17.

Reprinted from:
• Lidderdale, Robert Halliday, An Account of the Lowland Scots Family of Lidderdale, 1950.
• Lidderdale, Halliday Adair, The Descendants of John Lidderdale 1783-1845, 1988, unpublished manuscript.

Robert Halliday Lidderdale, Major British South Africa Police