Thurston was born October 25, 1839, in Providence, R.I. He was the oldest son of Robert Lawton Thurston (1800-1873), who partnered with John Babcock for a few years to form the Providence Steam Engine Company in 1834, the first steam manufactory in New England. Later, young Thurston spent much of his time in the shops of his father's Providence-based firm, Thurston, Greene and Company, which sold steam engines and power machinery to the Providence and Newport markets. Upon the advice of his high school science teacher, Thurston decided to attend college before joining his father's firm. He attended Brown University and graduated in 1859 with a Ph.B. and a certificate of engineering — he had taken every mathematics, physical science and civil engineering course offered. Upon graduation, he joined the drafting room of his father's firm, where he acquired a range of valuable practical knowledge, including the operation of the forge and machine shops.

In 1861, during the Civil War, he volunteered for duty and successfully passed the engineer exam of the Naval Engineering Corps. He served on the USS Unadilla and later was in charge of ship machinery on a number of steamships enforcing a blockade of southern ports. After the war he remained in the military, assigned to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis as assistant professor of chemistry and physics, where he stayed for five years.

In 1870, he took a leave of absence and traveled to England to report on iron shipbuilding and the making of iron and steel for the Journal of the Franklin Institute. His articles so impressed journal editor Henry Morton, who was also the secretary of the Franklin Institute and president of the recently founded Stevens Institute of Technology, that Morton invited him to join Stevens as professor of mechanical engineering in March 1871. During his tenure there, Thurston established the first mechanical laboratory for research and testing and the first curriculum that combined theory and research with practical shop experience.

In 1885, he became director of Sibley College at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., and reorganized it as a college of mechanical engineering, immediately establishing a department of experimental engineering—an elaboration of the pioneer mechanical laboratory courses at Stevens. He taught courses in thermodynamics and steam engineering and turned his course material into a series of multi-volume works on strength of materials, friction and work, steam boilers, and steam engines.

During his life, Robert Henry Thurston made significant contributions to the engineering profession, most specifically in the areas of materials, thermodynamics, steam engines and boilers, friction and energetics; to the education curriculum and research; and to the development of numerous technical societies. He was widely published and held two patents, one for an autographic recording testing machine for material in torsion, and one for a machine for testing lubricants.

He died on his birthday, Oct. 25, 1903, Ithaca, New York.