Barnby was a com­pos­er, con­duct­or and (like his fa­ther Thom­as Barn­by) an or­gan­ist. He en­tered the choir of York Min­ster at age se­ven, and was an or­gan­ist and choir­mas­ter at twelve. In 1854 he went to Lon­don and en­tered the Roy­al Acad­e­my of Mu­sic, where he stu­died under Cip­ri­ani Pot­ter and Charles Lu­cas. In 1856, he com­pet­ed for the first Men­dels­sohn Schol­ar­ship. When the ex­am­in­a­tions were over, of the nine­teen ap­pli­cants, he was tied for first place with Ar­thur Sul­li­van. Af­ter a sec­ond test, Sul­li­van won.

Barnby was or­gan­ist at Mitc­ham, St. Michael’s, Queen­hithe, and St. James’ the Less, West­minster, be­fore he was ap­point­ed to St. An­drew’s, Wells Street, where he re­mained from 1863 to 1871, es­tab­lish­ing the mu­sic­al rep­u­ta­tion of the serv­ices. From 1871 to 1886 he was or­gan­ist of St. Anne’s, Soho, where he in­sti­tut­ed the an­nu­al per­form­ances of Bach’s Pass­ion Mu­sic ac­cord­ing to St. John, with or­ches­tral ac­comp­a­ni­ment. In 1867, Messrs. No­vel­lo, to whom he had been mu­sic­al ad­vis­er since 1861, es­tab­lished Barn­by’s Choir, which gave “or­a­tor­io con­certs” from 1869 to 1872, when it was amal­ga­mat­ed with the choir formed and con­duct­ed by M. Gou­nod at the Albert Hall, under the ti­tle of the Roy­al Al­bert Hall Chor­al So­ci­e­ty (now the Roy­al Chor­al So­ci­ety). The same pub­lish­ing firm al­so gave dai­ly con­certs in the Al­bert Hall, 1874-75, which Barn­by or­ches­trat­ed.

Barnby con­duct­ed the St. Mat­thew Pass­ion in West­min­ster Abbey in 1871. He was ap­point­ed pre­cen­tor of Eton in 1875, a post he kept until 1892, when he suc­ceed­ed Thomas Weist-Hill as prin­ci­pal of the Guild­hall School of Mu­sic.

In 1878, Barn­by mar­ried Edith Ma­ry Sil­ver­thorne. Al­so that year, he helped found the Lon­don Mu­sic­al So­ci­e­ty, be­com­ing its first di­rect­or and con­duct­or. Un­der his ba­ton, the So­ci­e­ty pro­duced Dvorak’s Sta­bat Ma­ter for the first time in Eng­land.

In 1884, Barn­by con­duct­ed the first per­for­mance in En­gland of Wag­ner’s Par­si­fal as a con­cert in the Al­bert Hall. From 1886-88 he con­duct­ed re­hears­als and con­certs of the Roy­al Acad­e­my of Mu­sic, of which he was a fel­low.

Barnby was knight­ed in 1892, and in the same year con­duct­ed the Car­diff Fes­ti­val. He con­duct­ed the fes­ti­val again in 1895.

Barnby’s com­po­si­tions in­clude an ora­tor­io (Re­be­kah, 1870), a psalm (The Lord Is King, Leeds Fes­ti­val, 1893), an enor­mous num­ber of ser­vices and an­thems, part songs and vo­cal so­lo, tri­os, etc. He al­so wrote a ser­ies of Eton Songs, 246 hymn tunes (pub­lished in one vol­ume in 1897), and ed­it­ed five hymn­als, the most im­port­ant of which was The Hym­nary (1872).

Biography courtesy of Thomas and Mary Barnby Hedges.