Sir George Edward Godber GCB (4 August 1908 – 7 February 2009) was an English General practitioner, who served as Chief Medical Officer for the Government of the United Kingdom from 1960 to 1973.

[5] He was partly inspired to pursue public health by his Warden, the historian H. A. L. Fisher, who had been David Lloyd George's Education Secretary.

[9] Another mentor was a young New College don, Richard Crossman, who was later to become Godber's Secretary of State for Health and Social Security.

[10] After completing his clinical training, Godber was employed in a variety of junior posts that gave him an insight into the state of the nation's health.

[12] Limited by the lack of medical specialties afforded to him with the loss of his eye and due to his aversion to taking fees from patients,[13] he decided to specialise in public health medicine and attended the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, earning a diploma in public health in 1936.