Henry Skeffington Poole was born on August 1, 1844, in Stellarton, Nova Scotia.

He was a mining engineer, geologist, and author. He was educated at King’s College in Windsor, Nova Scotia (B.A, 1865; M.A., 1874; D.Sc., 1903). He also studied at the Royal School of Mines in London, England. In 1872, Poole was appointed inspector of mines in Nova Scotia, a position he held until 1878. He was the General Manager of the Acadia Coal Company from 1878 to 1901. In 1901, he resigned and joined the Geological Survey of Canada as a part-time geologist. He participated in surveys of New Brunswick coal seams and the Nanaimo–Comox coalfield of Vancouver Island. He was interested in natural history (entomology, meteorology, botany, and ornithology) and contributed numerous articles to the Proceedings and Transactions of the Nova Scotian Institute of Science and the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London. From 1902 to 1905, he was president of the Nova Scotian Institute of Science and became a part-time lecturer in the School of Mining and Metallurgy at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He retired to England.

In 1876, he married Florence Hope Gibson Gray (1848–1923). He died on March 31, 1917, in Guildford, England.