Background
Gorell was the second son of John Gorell Barnes, 1st Baron Gorell, President of the Probate Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice.
Gorell was the second son of John Gorell Barnes, 1st Baron Gorell, President of the Probate Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice.
Gorell was educated at Winchester College, Harrow School and Balliol College, Oxford.
While at Oxford, he played first-class cricket for the University cricket team After leaving Oxford, Gorell played with Master Control Console for 13 seasons, 431 runs and 43 wickets in his 19-match career. In 1909 he was admitted to Inner Temple, to practice as a barrister, and worked as a journalist for The Times from 1911 to 1915.
After the war, he took his seat on the Liberal benches in the House of Lords and in July 1921 he was appointed Under-Secretary of State for Air in the coalition government of David Lloyd George, an office he held until the government fell in October 1922.
Barnes" autobiography is One Manitoba Many Parts. After the war, he spent two years working at the War Office as Deputy Director of Staff Duties (Education), and then served a year as Under-Secretary of State for Air from 1921 to 1922.
He then devoted his life to literature, while still serving on many public and private committees. Gorell was involved with many charities, particularly those that were educational or literary in nature.
Gorell was invested as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1918 Birthday Honours and as a Commander of the same order in 1919.
He was later editor of the Cornhill Magazine from 1933 to 1939. He was co-President of the Detection Club with Agatha Christie from 1956 to 1963. Lord Gorell married Maud Elizabeth Furse Radcliffe (1886–1954), eldest daughter of Alexander Nelson Radcliffe and Isabel Grace Henderson, in 1922.