Godfrey Harry Stafford

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

, FRS (15 April 1920 – 30 July 2013), was a British

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

and directed the Rutherford Appleton Laboratories from 1969 to 1981. He went on to be a

master Master or masters may refer to: Ranks or titles * Ascended master, a term used in the Theosophical religious tradition to refer to spiritually enlightened beings who in past incarnations were ordinary humans *Grandmaster (chess), National Master ...

St Cross College St Cross College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1965, St Cross is an all-graduate college with gothic and traditional-style buildings on a central site in St Giles', just south of Pusey Street. It a ...

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

and president of the

Institute of Physics The Institute of Physics (IOP) is a UK-based learned society and professional body that works to advance physics education, research and application. It was founded in 1874 and has a worldwide membership of over 20,000. The IOP is the Physica ...

. In 1950 Dr. Stafford married Helen Goldthorp Clark, an Australian biologist. He has a son and twin daughters and lived near Oxford.

Early life and the Navy

Stafford was born in England in 1920 but moved to South Africa at the age of 8. He attended the

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) ( af, Universiteit van Kaapstad, xh, Yunibesithi ya yaseKapa) is a public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university statu ...

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 Degaussing is the process of decreasing or eliminating a remnant magnetic field. It is named after the gauss, a unit of magnetism, which in turn was named after Carl Friedrich Gauss. Due to magnetic hysteresis, it is generally not possible to redu ...

in the southern hemisphere. With the end of hostilities he entered

Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Gonville and Caius College, often referred to simply as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and one of th ...

, as Ebden Scholar of the University of Cape Town, obtaining his Ph.D. in 1950. He later accepted a post with the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research as the Head of its Biophysics Sub-Division. In 1954 after 2½ years in Pretoria, Dr. Gerry Pickavance offered a job at

Harwell Harwell may refer to: People * Harwell (surname) * Harwell Hamilton Harris (1903–1990), American architect Places * Harwell, Nottinghamshire, England, a hamlet *Harwell, Oxfordshire, England, a village **RAF Harwell, a World War II RAF airfield, ...

in the Cyclotron Group.

Rutherford Laboratory

The Rutherford Laboratory came into being in 1957 with

Gerry Pickavance Thomas Gerald Pickavance (19 October 1915 – 12 November 1991) was a British nuclear physicist who was a leading authority on the design and use of particle accelerators. He was generally known as Gerry Pickavance. Life and career He was born ...

as the first Director and Stafford as the Head of the Proton Linear Accelerator (PLA) Group. The PLA achieved its first full energy beam in 1959. By 1963 with the PLA a well established machine he became responsible for the high energy physics programme for the

Nimrod (synchrotron) Nimrod (National Institute Machine Radiating on Downs, "the Mighty Hunter" Nimrod; name attributed to W. Galbraith) was a 7 GeV proton synchrotron operating in the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the United Kingdom between 1964 and 1978. Nimro ...

. Stafford became Deputy Director on 1 April 1966. He has had close association with

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in a northwestern suburb of Gene ...

and was a keen supporter of the idea of a

European Physical Society The European Physical Society (EPS) is a non-profit organisation whose purpose is to promote physics and physicists in Europe through methods such as physics outreach. Formally established in 1968, its membership includes the national physical so ...

and became a Member of the Steering Committee for its formation. He later acted as Scientific Secretary to the Organising Committee for the inaugural meeting of the Society which was held in Florence in April 1969. He succeeded Gerry Pickavance in 1969 as director of the

Rutherford Appleton Laboratory The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) is one of the national scientific research laboratories in the UK operated by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). It began as the Rutherford High Energy Laboratory, merged with the Atlas ...

. During his time at the Rutherford labs he oversaw much expansion of the labs including the take over of the

Atlas Computer Laboratory The Atlas Computer Laboratory on the Harwell, Oxfordshire campus shared by the Harwell Laboratory was one of the major computer laboratories in the world, which operated between 1961 and 1975 to provide a service to British scientists at a tim ...

by the Rutherford Laboratory in 1975, and the development of superconducting '

Rutherford Cable Rutherford may refer to: Places Australia * Rutherford, New South Wales, a suburb of Maitland * Rutherford (Parish), New South Wales, a civil parish of Yungnulgra County Canada * Mount Rutherford, Jasper National Park * Rutherford, Edmonton ...

' for magnets in future CERN accelerators.John Bertram Adams. ''Biogr. Mem. Fellows R. Soc.'' by G. H. Stafford,

Later work and titles

Stafford was the second master of

, Oxford from 1979 to 1987. He headed the

in 1984 was made president of the

in 1986. He received a CBE for his services to science and was made a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

in 1979.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stafford, Godfrey 1920 births 2013 deaths British physicists Fellows of the Royal Society Masters of St Cross College, Oxford Presidents of the Institute of Physics Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University of Cape Town alumni British expatriates in South Africa Presidents of the European Physical Society