Henry Horace Hibbs, Jr. was born in Smithland, Kentucky on November 25, 1887, and was one of eight children. In 1908 he graduated from Williamsburg Institute in Kentucky. He attended Brown University and majored in Sociology after becoming interested in the problems of urban communities, receiving his A.B. degree in 1910 and the A.M. degree in 1911. In 1910-12 he held a Fellowship in the research department of the Boston School for Social Workers. While in Boston he was a resident of the St. Mary's House for Sailors and also of South End House and in addition was a member of Conference 7 of the Associated Charities. In 1912-13 he taught history and social science in Tarleton College (Texas) and in 1914-15 sociology and statistics at the University of Illinois. In 1915 he was a lecturer in the Summer School for Social and Religious Workers conducted by the Biblical Department of Vanderbilt University and the American Interchurch College. He was registered at Columbia University in 1913-14 and 1915-16, attending courses under Professors Giddings and Tenney in sociology, under Professors Seligman and Seager in Economics, under Professor Devine in Social Economy, and Professor Chaddock in Statistics. In 1916 he completed his Ph.D. at Columbia University. His dissertation was entitled "Infant Mortality: Its Relations to Social and Industrial Conditions."

In 1917, a group of Richmond community leaders organized what became the Richmond School of Social Work and Public Health to address urban social and health concerns. It would train social workers and public health nurses, becoming the first school of its kind in the south. They hired Hibbs as the director. In 1925, the school began an affiliation with the College of William and Mary. In 1939 the school was renamed the Richmond Professional Institute (RPI) of the College of William and Mary. In 1968, The Richmond Professional Institute merged with the Medical College of Virginia to become Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU).

Hibbs retired in 1959 after 42 years of heading the school, and by the early 1960s he and his wife, Jessie R. Persinger Hibbs, retired to Lexington, Virginia. After his retirement, Hibbs was paid a consultant fee to write the history of RPI. He intended for the school to solely profit from the book. Both the alumni group of VCU and the RPI Foundation were involved in the editing of the book before it was finally published in 1973. Hibbs died on April 4, 1977 at the age of 89. Henry Hibbs and Jessie Hibbs had two daughters, Mary Sue and Jessie.