Tolliver Callison was born in Edgefield (now McCormick) County in 1884. He graduated from the University of South Carolina Law School in 1909. He married Margaret Reel of Edgefield and they had two daughters and three sons.
He was a partner in the firm of J. William Thurmond and George Bell Timmerman, Sr. from 1912 until 1920 and with R. Milo Smith from 1929 through 1940. He served as Solicitor of the Eleventh Circuit from 1921 until 1937. He became an Assistant Attorney General for South Carolina in 1940 and was Attorney General of South Carolina from 1951 until 1959. He was Chairman of the Southern Association of Attorney Generals in 1954 and was a member of the Fourth Circuit Judicial Conference.
He was an ardent churchman, a Mason and an Lion, served for 40 years as a trustee of the South Carolina Baptist Hospital, Chairman of the South Carolina State Board of Public Welfare, and, at his death, was Vice-President of the First National Bank of South Carolina. Previously, he had organized and was President of the Bank of Lexington from 1948 through 1965.
He sought to uphold the law, preserve states’ rights, convict the guilty, and protect the innocent. He represented the interest of the State as if it were his own.