Thomas Barbour, zoologist and museum director, was born on August 19, 1884 to William and Adelaide (Sprague) Barbour, on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. William Barbour was a director of the linen mill of William Barbour and Sons in Northern Ireland, and often took his family with him abroad on business trips. Because of this Thomas had visited most of the large natural history museums in Europe by the time he was eight years old. Barbour prepared for college at the Brownings School in New York City, and through private tutors. He graduated from Harvard University in 1906 with an A.B. and received his doctorate in 1910 (Bigelow 13). That same year he represented the Association of American Universities at the reopening of the University of Mexico and was appointed Associate Curator of Reptile and Amphibians in the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard.

During World War I, Barbour did intelligence work in Cuba, where his fluency in Spanish and wide circle of acquaintances suited him well. He returned to the Museum after the war, where in 1925 he was appointed Curator of the Herpetological Department. In 1926 he was appointed Professor of Zoology, in 1927 he was chosen as Director of the Museum, and in 1944 Barbour was appointed the Alexander Agassiz Professor (Bigelow 15).

He played a very active part in the establishment and maintenance of the Barro Colorado Laboratory in Panama until it was made part of the Canal Zone Biological Area (Bigelow 17). He played a key role in the development of the Atkins Institute of the Arnold Arboretum at Soledad, near Cienfuegos, Cuba, serving as a custodian for several years, beginning in 1927. Barbour's long list of accolades includes: serving as President of the Boston Society of Natural History from 1925 to 1927, and its offspring, the New England Museum of Natural History from 1940 to 1945; serving as a trustee of the Peabody Museum of Salem and leading the rejuvenation of the museum in the 1940s; and serving as a trustee of Radcliff College, the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He was a member of the Advisory Board of the Guggenheim Foundation and a Director of the Fairchild Tropical Garden in Florida. Barbour was also largely responsible for developments that led to the manufacture of antivenin for snake bites in North America (Bigelow 17). Barbour was a world authority on reptiles and amphibians and wrote extensively on fish, and the birds of Cuba (Bigelow 18).

He married Rosamond Pierce of Brookline, Massachusetts in 1906 and they had four daughters and one son together. Barbour died on January 8, 1946.