colonial secretary, was born in India, the son of Major General John Craigie-Halkett of the Indian Army and Mrs Craigie-Halkett, née Maxwell. He entered the Royal Indian Engineering College in 1872. In the same year he was gazetted to the Royal Lanark Militia and subsequently to the Fife Artillery Militia where he was captain and artillery instructor. In 1876 he went out to West Africa as artillery instructor of the Houssa Force in the Gold Coast {Ghana} and in March 1877 he was entrusted with a diplomatic mission to the Kings of Denkana and Wassaw on the west coast. He held a succession of posts in the Gold Coast: commissioner, commandant and treasurer of the Dixcove district; on special duty in Prahsu and to the Ashanti frontier inspecting roads and fortifications; commissioner, commandant and treasurer of the Secondee district. He was posted to Fiji as stipendiary magistrate and then to Sierra Leone as inspector-general of police. He went to the Bahamas as provost marshall and was then posted to the Falkland Islands as colonial secretary. In March 1881 in Auckland he married Edith Amie Parry: their son Montague Cecil CRAIGIE-HALKETT was born in 1880.

He died in London in October 1899 and is commemorated by a plaque in Stanley Cathedral commemorating his service as captain and officer commanding the Falkland Islands Volunteers.