Margaret Barnes

Margaret Barnes (26 August 1919 – 30 October 2009) was a British marine biologist.

She was born in Manchester and grew up in Wales and England. She received a BSc from the University of London in 1939. Originally trained in chemistry, during World War II, she worked on colloidal graphite lubricants. She received a MSc in 1945 from the University of London. Also in 1945, she married Harold Barnes, also a chemist who later pursued marine biology. Barnes and her husband came to be recognized as world authorities on barnacle biology. She moved to the Scottish Marine Biological Association (later the Scottish Association for Marine Science or SAMS) marine station at Millport to join her husband in 1945. The couple moved to a new marine station at Oban in 1967.

Barnes was a founding member of the European Marine Biology Symposium and served as its president in 1988.