Sir Ernest Barker FBA (23 September 1874 – 17 February 1960)[1] was an English political scientist who served as Principal of King's College London from 1920 to 1927.

[citation needed] Ernest Barker was born in Woodley, Cheshire, and educated at Manchester Grammar School and Balliol College, Oxford.

[4] He was Principal of King's College London from 1920 to 1927,[5] and subsequently became Professor of Political Science in the University of Cambridge in 1928,[6] being the first holder of the chair endowed by the Rockefeller Foundation.

He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1958.

[9] Barker was married twice, firstly in 1900 to Emily Isabel Salkeld, with whom he had a son and two daughters; she died in 1924.