Philip Herbert Carpenter was born on February 6, 1852, in London, England.

He was a British naturalist and crinoid authority, the fourth son of Dr. William Benjamin Carpenter (1813-1885). In 1874, he graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge. He was a member of the scientific staff of the deep-sea exploring expeditions of H.M.S. Lightning (1868), Porcupine (1869–1870), Valorous (1875), and Challenger (1872–1876). He became an expert on the morphology of the echinoderms, especially the crinoids, both contemporary and fossil. In 1883, he was awarded the Lyell Fund by the Geological Society of London in recognition of the scientific value of his work. In 1885, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He published many papers on Echinoderm and especially Crinoid morphology, in the Royal, Linnean, Geological, and Zoological Societies of London, the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, the Annals and Magazine of Natural History, Zoologischer Anzeiger, and many other journals.

In 1879, he married Caroline Emma Hale (1858–1936). He took his own life on October 21, 1891, in Eton, England, by self-administration of chloroform during a bout of temporary insanity caused by chronic insomnia.