In 1879, Howard T. Barnes moved with his family from Massachusetts to Montreal. where his father was appointed minister of Montreal's Unitarian church. After attending secondary school in Montreal, he entered in 1889 McGill University, where he received in 1893 his bachelor's degree in physics and, after working there as a demonstrator in chemistry, an M.S. in Applied Science in 1896. He became at McGill a demonstrator in physics and worked under Hugh L. Callendar. In 1898, Ernest Rutherford succeeded to Callendar's professorial chair and supervised Barnes, among others. In 1899 Barnes went to the U.K. on a scholarship from the Royal Society ; he returned to McGill in 1900 as a lecturer in physics. In 1900 he received a D.Sc. from McGill, where he became an assistant professor in 1901 and associate professor in 1906. In 1907 he succeeded Ernest Rutherford as Macdonald Professor of Physician, but resigned his chair in 1919. In the early 1920s he again became a professor at McGill, where he remained until his retirement as professor emeritus in 1933.