Born 20 July 1858 at Wendlebury, Bicester, Oxfordshire, the youngest of the six children, five sons and a daughter, of John Tanner, farmer, and Ann Foster, his wife. He was educated at Buckingham Grammar School and St Mary's Hospital. He was scholar in ophthalmology, third session scholar, prosector in anatomy, and ophthalmic assistant at St Mary's Hospital. He settled as a general practitioner at 152 Westbourne Grove, W11, soon after he qualified and at a time when William Whiteley, the draper, was attracting many persons to the neighbourhood. He married Emily Sophia Hickman on 23 December 1885, who survived him. Their only child Harold Tanner, MB London 1910 and temporary captain, RAMC, 1 June 1916, was drowned accidentally at Boulogne in 1916. Herbert Tanner retired in 1926 to Highlands, Lacey Green, Prince's Risborough, Bucks, and died there on 12 August 1939. He invented a bimanual ophthalmoscope.