He was educated at the High School of Glasgow and studied English Language and Literature at the University of Glasgow from where he graduated with an Master of Arts with first class honours. He studied at Balliol College, University of Oxford where he obtaining a first class honours degree in modern history in 1939.
Stones served in the Royal Signals during the Second World War, rising to the rank of Major. Stones was a lecturer in history at Glasgow University from 1945 to 1956, completed his Doctor of Philosophy there in 1950, and became Edwards Professor of Medieval History there in 1956. He retired in 1978 and was succeeded in the Edwards chair by Alfred Lawson Brown.
His papers are held at the University of Glasgow Archives.
Stones died in 1987.
