Gorell was the eldest son of Henry Barnes, a shipowner of Liverpool, and was educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge.

[2] He began work as a solicitor,[citation needed] but was called to the Bar in 1876 and became a Queen's Counsel in 1888.

[2] He was well known as an expert in Admiralty cases, and in 1892 was made a Judge of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice, where he acted as president during the illness of Sir Francis Jeune in late 1902.

He was admitted to the Privy Council in 1905 and in 1909 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Gorell, of Brampton in the County of Derby.

He died in April 1913, aged 64, and was succeeded in the barony by his eldest son Henry Gorell Barnes.