Edward Thaddeus Barleycorn Barber (1865–1948) was born on 1 July 1865 in the Spanish colonized capital city of Santa Isabel on the island of Fernando Po in West Africa.

He was one of the first black people in York and is presumably linked with William N Barleycorn, the first native Primitive Methodist Minister in Fernando Po. Other leading Creole families in Fernando Po (now Bioko) around this time included the Barber family, as well as Davis, Barleycorn, Vivour, Kinson, Dougan, Balboa, Knox, Coker and Collins, although an ancestral link has been suggested with Francis Barber, Samuel Johnson's man-servant.