Henry Starnes (October 13, 1815 – March 3, 1896) was a Quebec businessman and political figure.

He was born in Kingston in Upper Canada in 1816 and studied at the Montreal Academical Institution and the Petit Séminaire de Montréal.

The exposure of this arrangement led to the Pacific Scandal and the fall of John A. Macdonald's Conservative government.

The Metropolitan Bank closed in 1876; Starnes' unorthodox financial management was blamed for its collapse.

Corinne Starnes married, May 31, 1869, Kenneth Gregg Henderson, Captain H.M.'s 60th Rifles, who had distinguished himself during the Indian Mutiny and in China, and became, successively, colonel of his regiment, a major-general, and commandant of the garrison at Alexandria.