"Godfrey Stafford, who has died aged 93, was a particle physicist who served as head of the Rutherford Laboratory in Oxfordshire in the 1970s and as Master of St Cross College, Oxford, from 1979 to 1987. The Rutherford Laboratory began in 1957 as the National Institute for Research in Nuclear Science, next to the Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE) at Harwell. Its purpose was to provide a national facility for high level nuclear physics research. As head of the Proton Linear Accelerator group from the laboratory’s inception, Stafford oversaw the transfer of AERE’s 50 MeV proton linear accelerator to the new laboratory and its subsequent development into the “Nimrod” synchrotron, a particle accelerator which came online in 1963, helping to ensure Britain’s continued prominence in the field of particle physics and becoming essential to the development of the Standard Model of particle physics. Subsequently he became responsible for the high energy physics programme for Nimrod. As director of the Rutherford Lab from 1969 to 1979, Stafford oversaw the expansion of the laboratory facilities, including the takeover of the neighbouring Atlas Computer Laboratory in 1975. As it became clear that the next level of accelerator was beyond Britain’s science budget, Stafford argued the case for Britain to collaborate with Europe and became heavily involved with the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) laboratories in Geneva, which was chosen as the centre for a joint European research effort in order to compete with the superpowers. He served as vice president of the CERN council from 1973 and 1975 and chairman of CERN’s scientific policy committee from 1978 to 1980. As accelerator work moved over to CERN, Stafford transformed the Rutherford Laboratory into the first modern national laboratory, a place for smaller scientific groups to be supported and also come together to do large, impressive research — a model which has been adopted by research institutions throughout the world. Godfrey Harry Stafford was born in England on April 15 1920 and moved to South Africa with his family at the age of eight. After Rondebosch Boys High School he went up to the University of Cape Town, graduating in Physics in 1941. The following year he published his first scientific paper on “The Second Maximum in the Rossi Curve” in Nature. His second, “The Production of Cosmic Ray Bursts by Mesotrons” would be published in 1944 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. In the meantime, in 1941 Stafford joined the South African Naval Forces as a Lieutenant Electrical Officer concerned with “degaussing” work in the southern hemisphere. (Degaussing is a technique used to reduce the magnetic “signatures” of ships to counter magnetic mines ). In the early days of his military service he was based at Robben Island (later famous as the prison camp where Nelson Mandela was held). Later he moved to Durban to take control of a new degaussing unit. In 1943 he came to England to undertake research on radar at the Admiralty Research Establishment near Haslemere. The following year he took part in the D-Day landings, personally sailing between ships to coordinate their radar systems. Towards the end of the war he served on a fighter direction ship — a vessel equipped with radar that acted as a control centre for fighter operations." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10313559/Godfrey-Stafford.html
