Godfrey Harry Stafford CBE, FRS (15 April 1920 – 30 July 2013),[1][2] was a British physicist and directed the Rutherford Appleton Laboratories from 1969 to 1981.

He attended the University of Cape Town where he came top of his class for Physics and subsequently did an MSc researching cosmic rays in 1941.

He joined the South African Naval Forces as a Lieutenant Electrical Officer concerned with degaussing in the southern hemisphere.

With the end of hostilities he entered Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, as Ebden Scholar of the University of Cape Town, obtaining his Ph.D. in 1950.

The Rutherford Laboratory came into being in 1957 with Gerry Pickavance as the first Director and Stafford as the Head of the Proton Linear Accelerator (PLA) Group.