Ernest James Hayford, MD, MRCP(Eng), LRCP, BL (23 April 1858, Anomabu – 6 August 1913, London) was a physician and lawyer in the Gold Coast.

Joseph de Graft Hayford, a Methodist minister, and Mary Brew.

He was educated at Anomabu, at Cape Coast, and at the Wesleyan High School at Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Specializing in gynaecology at the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin, he returned to private practice in Cape Coast.

[1] He was an executive member of the Gold Coast Aborigines' Rights Protection Society, and his interest in politics led him to study law privately and then at Lincoln's Inn in London from 1910 to 1913.