Born in Jan, 1868, at Highbury, in the north of London, the son of James Barnard, engraver and designer in precious metals, and a great-nephew on his father’s side of Michael Faraday. After attending school in the neighbourhood he and his brother were sent three months before his sixteenth birthday to an uncle’s ranch in Oregon, Harold being under a promise that he would read for the Matriculation of the London University. He looked back with the keenest pleasure to these ten months spent on his uncle’s ranch, and the opportunities it afforded of adventure. On his return in the summer of 1884 he failed, however, to pass the examination, and for a time became a clerk in the office of a firm of wholesale timber merchants. He was not happy in this apprenticeship, and by close application he passed his Matriculation and Preliminary Scientific Examinations and entered the London Hospital in 1888. He gained in his first year a Scholarship in Anatomy and Physiology, and subsequently other scholarships and prizes. In 1893, at the end of his fourth year, he acted as Clinical Assistant in several positions; in 1894 he was Resident House Physician to Dr Samuel Fenwick and then House Surgeon to his son, E Hurry Fenwick, and became Demonstrator of Physiology under Dr Leonard Hill until March, 1897. Dr Leonard Hill wrote concerning their two years of co-operation, that Barnard exhibited the highest scientific ability in the researches carried out under his guidance. The influence of gravity on the circulation, through the brain in particular; the effects of venous pressure on the pulse; the effect of chloroform, also of morphia, ammonia, and hydrocyanic acid on the heart; the functions of the pericardium; as well as the invention of an improved sphygmomanometer – have all proved of scientific value, and show Barnard’s scientific genius in working. He obtained the post of Surgical Registrar in March, 1897, and then devoted himself wholly to surgery. Two years later he became Surgical Tutor, and, in 1900, Assistant Surgeon to the Hospital. He practised at 21 Wimpole Street. His surgical genius appeared when Surgical Registrar, in the paper published on “An Improved Method of Treating the Separated Lower Epiphysis of the Femur”, which he suggested to, and in which he assisted, Jonathan Hutchinson, junr. He showed by means of the newly discovered X rays the displacement forwards of the epiphysis, and the direction backwards of the femur, as well as the successful reduction by flexion in place of the previous treatment by extension. Barnard had collected 13 cases from the London Hospital Records, and stated that in 3 there had been a complete separation of the lower epiphysis of the femur. In 1902, he published a paper on “The Simulation of Acute Peritonitis by Pleuropneumonic Diseases”, and in so doing brought to the forefront a difficulty in diagnosis which must always be present to the mind. The three lectures “On Acute Appendicitis”, which he gave in 1903, were accompanied by diagrams illustrating the various positions occupied by suppuration, and his clock mnemonic of the positions of the appendix, is one which fixes itself in the student’s memory. Sir Frederick Treves had preceded him in developing the surgery of the appendix at the London Hospital, but had rather advocated delay in operating. It was not that there is often justification, but the crux remains that if the case for delay proves to be mistaken in the individual case the patient loses his life. Barnard put forward the reasons for the immediate operation, now the established one where children and young people are concerned. His article on “Intestinal Obstruction” in the second edition of Allbutt and Rolleston’s *System of Medicine*, reprinted and further enlarged with diagrams and bibliography in *Contributions to Abdominal Surgery*, is a brilliant exposition of a most difficult and even protean branch of surgery. There is much that is new in the sections on faecal obstruction, congenital dilatation of the colon, gallstone obstruction, strangulation by bands and by Meckel’s diverticulum, and obstruction by foreign bodies. But Barnard will be best remembered for his address on “Surgical Aspects of Subphrenic Abscess”, delivered before the Surgical Section of the Royal Society of Medicine on Jan 14th, 1907, but not printed until Feb 22nd, 1908, in the *British Medical Journal*. It is reprinted in the Contributions. Whatever the merits of previous descriptions, anatomical and pathological, subphrenic abscess had been described rather from the classical position of the man upright. Diagnosis by means of X-ray examination and the patient’s position at the operation are alike the horizontal one. It is in this position that the surgeon is called upon to approach and drain subphrenic suppurations. Barnard’s admirable drawings are the surgeon’s guide. He had served as Surgeon to the Poplar Hospital for Accidents, and in 1907 he became Surgeon to the London Hospital, when his health began to fail. A short cough was premonitory of aortic disease. He died at Highbury on Aug 13th, 1908, and was buried in Highgate Old Cemetery. Publications: *Jour. of Physiol. and Proc. Physiol. Soc.*, 1897, 1898; also Dr. L. Hill, *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1908, ii, 539. Jonathan Hutchinson, Junr., and H. L. Barnard, “On an Improved Method of Treating the Separated Lower Epiphysis of the Femur.” – *Med.-Chir. Trans.*, 1899, lxxxii, 77; also “H. L. Barnard, Colleague and Collaborator. An Appreciation.” – J. Hutchinson, *London Hosp. Gaz.*, 1908, 96, with portrait. *Contributions to Abdominal Surgery*, edited by James Sherren, with a Memoir by H. H. Bashford, 1910. Contents: Intestinal Obstruction, 1-254; A Lecture on Gastric Surgery, 255-68. The simulation of Acute Peritonitis by Pleuropneumonic Diseases, 269-80. Three Lectures on Acute Appendicitis, 281-333. Surgical Aspects of Subphrenic Abscess, 335-84. Besides these are his contributions on various subjects, 1901.