Henry Robert Bastow (1839 – 30 September 1920) was an Australian architect, known for overseeing the design and construction of over 600 schools for the new Victorian Department of Education in the 1870s and 1880s.

Born in Bridport, England, Bastow studied architecture in nearby Dorchester, at the same time as Thomas Hardy, later a noted author, was apprenticed to local architect John Hicks.

Nearly all the early schools were in a similar Victorian Gothic Revival style, usually picturesque, but some symmetrical, with walls of face brick, in brown or red brick, a few in bluestone, with highlights in contrasting brickwork, low pointed arch windows, steep slate roofs, prominent gables, some with jerkinhead roofs, and a prominent bell tower, usually over the entrance.

In the later years of his tenure, the architects of the Public Works Department produced designs in a wider range of styles than earlier decades, which were marked by simplicity and restraint.

Following his departure from that position, he retired from public life to central Victoria, built a simple home equipped with a meeting room for his Brethren fellows, and became an apple orchardist.