Robert Barnes (4 September 1817 – 12 May 1907) was an English obstetric physician, known as a gynaecologist, teacher, author and medical politician.

Born at Norwich on 4 September 1817, he was second son and second child of the six children of Philip Barnes, an architect, by his wife Harriet Futter, daughter of a Norfolk squire.

Educated at Bruges from 1826 to 1830 and at home, where one of his tutors was George Borrow, Barnes began his medical career in 1832 as an apprentice in Norwich to Dr. Richard Griffin.

[1] Becoming a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1842, Barnes spent a year in Paris, where he concentrated on mental illness; on his return to London he settled in general practice in Notting Hill.

[1] A leading teacher and gynæcologist in London, Barnes was a rival of James Matthews Duncan both in debates at the Obstetrical Society, and in practice.

He was also a director of the Prudential Assurance Company (1848–9; 1884–1907), amassed a fortune, and gave to medical institutions including St. George's Hospital, where the pathological laboratory was called after him.