Gibbes' career as court tutor continued until the February Revolution of 1917, after which the Imperial family was imprisoned in Alexander Palace in Tsarskoe Selo. He was in Saint Petersburg at the time, and immediately after returning to Tsarskoe Selo was proscribed from seeing the family, only being allowed to recover his possessions after the family was transported to the house of the Governor-General of Tobolsk in Siberia. Gibbes voluntarily accompanied the family, arriving in the village in October 1917 shortly before the Provisional Government fell to the Bolsheviks. In May 1918 the Imperial family was moved to the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg, and neither Gibbes, French tutor Pierre Gilliard, nor most other servants were allowed to enter. The servants stayed in the railway carriage which had brought them to the city.