Godfrey Stafford: Physicist, Director, Master
Godfrey Stafford’s career as a physicist began with research in cosmic rays in the 1940s and he lived to see the discovery in 2012 of the Higgs boson at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. He made major contributions to the construction and exploitation of accelerators at the Rutherford Laboratory in the UK and was its Director from 1969 to 1981. During this period he oversaw the diversification of the Laboratory into the multi-disciplinary centre it is today. He was Master of St Cross College, Oxford from 1979 to 1987 and led the College as it settled into its new home on the Pusey House site. His tenure as Master was seen as transformational in several respects, and he maintained strong links with the College and its Fellowship throughout his subsequent retirement. His association with St Cross as Visiting Fellow, Master and then Honorary Fellow, spanned more than 40 years.