Born in 1869 in Birmingham, son of Joshua Barnes, Frank Barnes trained at Borough Road Training College as a schoolmaster. He then decided to abandon teaching for surgery, and without great financial aid he studied medicine at Mason College, Birmingham, qualifying in 1898. Barnes achieved his first great ambition in 1903, when he was elected to the staff of the General Hospital as honorary assistant surgeon. During the first world war he served as a Captain in the RAMC, and in 1917 he became a senior honorary surgeon to the General Hospital; when he retired in 1929 he was made consulting surgeon. Barnes was also consulting surgeon to the Birmingham and Midlands Eye Hospital, the Sutton Coldfield Cottage Hospital, and the Hospital of St Cross, Rugby, and surgeon to the Birmingham Orthopaedic Hospital. Barnes published little and was not interested in politics. He was lecturer in anatomy and operative surgery in the University of Birmingham but most of his teaching was by example, for though shy and retiring he was adventurous in his work. His chief interest was in abdominal surgery, but he extended his surgical prowess to the neurosurgical and orthopaedic fields, and was one of the first in England to operate on the Gasserian ganglion and the spinal cord. Barnes operated at great speed with absolute calmness; he hardly ever spoke, and was never known to show any irritation. Barnes was a generous benefactor to Birmingham University; in 1944 he established the Barnes postgraduate surgical travelling fellowship, and he gave munificently to the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital. In recognition, the University of Birmingham conferred on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. His greatest friend was his namesake though not a relative, Stanley Barnes, MD, FRCP, Dean of the Medical School 1931-41. Much of their leisure was spent together fishing, or playing golf at the Moseley Club and bridge at the Clef Club. Their generosity was commemorated in October 1959, when the new medical school library was named the Barnes Library. Owing to illness Frank Barnes was unable to perform the opening ceremony. Frank Barnes lived at The Briars, 138 Monyhull Hall Road, King's Norton, where he entertained hospitably and shared his garden with his friends. Barnes died at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital on 18 February 1960 in his 91st year. Publications: Treatment of infantile paralysis. *Birm Med Rev* 1908. Treatment of congenital dislocation of hip. *Trans Soc Study Childr Dis* 1908.