Missionary in China, the son of William Barber (1830-1916; e.m.1852), a WM missionary. He was born in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) on 4 January 1858, grew up in South Africa, where his father had moved on health grounds, and was educated at Kingswood School and Caius College, Cambridge. An accomplished linguist, in 1884 he was sent to Wuchang, China, as a colleague of David Hill, to establish a college for higher education. In 1898, after two years as a Mission House Secretary, he succeeded W.F. Moulton as headmaster of The Leys School. He was President of the Conference in 1919 and from 1920 to 1929 Principal of Richmond College. He wrote a life of David Hill and was Fernley Lecturer in 1917 on 'The Unfolding Life'. At the Methodist Church Congress in 1929 he spoke on 'The Methodist Emphasis - "A Free, Full, Present Salvation"'. He died in Cambridge on 18 October 1945.