Herbert Ballantine Gladstone was born in Albany, New York on July 26, 1915 to parents John Elbert and Lillian Ballantine Gladstone. He graduated from Nutley High School, New Jersey in 1932. He went on to receive an A.B. degree from Colgate University in 1937. He was employed by Standard Oil Company in New York City from 1937-1939.

He entered Graduate School at Princeton University, where he was a junior fellow for two years and a Fellow in Music for one and a half years. He was one of the first graduate students at Princeton to receive the Master of Fine Arts degree in Music, June 1942.

During WWII, he was classified as 4-F because of poor eyesight—but remained at Princeton to teach before moving to war work with the College Entrance Examination Board in their test construction division.

He married Whyddon Leigh Wilson on May 29, 1945; they had two sons, Bruce Whyddon and Duncan Linn Gladstone.

From 1946 to 1980 he was a music faculty member at Reed College. He served on many boards and committees: Director of the Friends of Chamber Music in Portland, Oregon; board member of the Portland Junior Symphony as well as the Portland Symphony Society. He was the recipient of a grant-in-aid from the American Council of Learned Societies, 1949, was awarded a Faculty Fellowship from the Fund for the Advancement of Education in 1954-55. He was also a member of the American Musicology Society, as well as the Society for Music in Liberal Arts Colleges. He was a member of Phi Kappa Tau.

Herbert Gladstone died in Portland, Oregon June 2011.