Gibbs was born on April 19, 1861 in Chicago, the first of four children of Francis Sarason Gibbs, a grain exporter, and Eliza Gay (Hosmer) Gibbs. He was a descendant of James Gibbs of Bristol, England, who settled in Rhode Island about 1660, and a nephew of the chemist Oliver Wolcott Gibbs.
Though the family was in straitened circumstances at the time, George was able to attend Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey, from which he was graduated with the degree of mechanical engineer in 1882.
In 1882 Thomas A. Edison started operation of the world's first central power station, on Pearl Street, New York City; and Gibbs secured his first employment with Edison, as laboratory assistant at Menlo Park, New Jersey, and then as superintendent of meters at the Pearl Street station. During the next two years he held a variety of positions, including that of chief chemist at the Orford Nickel and Copper Company, Bergen Point, New Jersey. About 1885 he went west to accept a position offered to him by a friend of his father's, Roswell Miller, general manager of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway, as head of a new department for making physical and chemical tests of materials used in the railroad's operations. In this capacity Gibbs designed a steam-heating system and an electric lighting system for trains which permitted the eventual elimination of the coal stoves and kerosene lamps then in general use. He also improved the railroad signaling system, conducted tests of freight-train brakes, and patented inventions of safety appliances. Meanwhile, in the early 1890's, while still employed by the railroad, he joined with his brother Lucius in organizing the Gibbs Electric Company, manufacturing electric motors for factory use. Through his railroad activities Gibbs had become acquainted with Samuel M. Vauclain of the Baldwin Locomotive Works and George Westinghouse, inventor of the air brake. The two men saw promising possibilities in heavy electric traction, and in 1897 Gibbs moved to Philadelphia and became associated with them as consulting engineer in the development of electric locomotives. Gibbs represented the Westinghouse heavy electric traction interests abroad and was chief engineer of the Westinghouse companies in England and on the continent, where he carried out projects for the electrification of railways in London and Liverpool and was consultant for the Paris "Metro" or subway. He developed for the Baldwin Locomotive Works the low-built type of electric locomotive for mines that has become standard in the United States. In 1901 Gibbs moved to New York City, where he played a major part in the heavy electric traction developments that eliminated steam locomotives from the Park Avenue tunnel and gave Manhattan its first rail connections with Long Island and New Jersey, through the East River and Hudson River tunnels. As a member of the electric traction commission of the New York Central Railroad, 1902-1905, he helped to electrify its lines into the new Grand Central Terminal. In 1905 he became chief engineer of electric traction and station construction for the Pennsylvania Railroad's New York Tunnel and Terminal Line, continuing in that position until after the completion of the Pennsylvania Station and lines in 1910. He also designed the electrification of the Long Island Rail Road. He was consulting engineer for the Rapid Transit Subway Construction Company, which built the first New York City subway. In addition Gibbs designed and patented the first all-steel passenger car ever put into practical use on a railway. First used on the original New York subway line, it led to the eventual adoption of steel cars on all American railways. In 1911 Gibbs and E. Rowland Hill, who had been closely associated since 1898, formed the partnership (later incorporated) of Gibbs and Hill. Through this firm Gibbs was responsible for much of the important electrification work on American railways, notably the 670 miles of the Pennsylvania between New York and Washington, and Philadelphia and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. During World War I he spent seven months in Russia (April-November 1917) as a member of the United States Railway Commission, sent to help reorganize Russian transport facilities in the hope that Russia would remain in the war. He died of pneumonia in New York City and was buried in the Gibbs family plot in St. Mary's Cemetery, Newport, Rhode Island.
Gibbs served as director of the American Society of Civil Engineers; he was a life trustee of Stevens Institute; he served as president of the American Institute of Consulting Engineers and was a fellow of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers.
Gibbs was qualified by education, ability, vision, and a high sense of responsibility to play an important part in the development of transportation. He possessed a keen sense of humor, innate dignity and courtesy, and a capacity for friendship that contributed greatly to his success. With strong pride of family, he attributed the direction of his career to inherited qualities and paid tribute to the ideals imparted by his mother.
Gibbs did not marry, but was devoted to his brother and sisters and their children.
