David Stafford-Clark was born on 17 March 1916 in Bromley, England. A psychiatrist, he testified for the defence in the trial of Günther Podola, who sought to evade murder charges on the grounds of amnesia. During his time on the house staff at Guy’s Hospital, he volunteered for the RAF at the outbreak of the Second World War. Afterward, he trained at the Institute of Psychiatry at Maudsley Hospital, relocating to Harvard for a Nuffield Fellowship. In 1950, he returned to Guy’s and was appointed Director of Psychological Medicine in 1954.
During his wartime service, Stafford-Clark took part in the experiments at Porton Down on poison gas, suffering severe chronic lung damage which led to his premature retirement in 1973. He contributed to Lifeline, transmitted during the 1960s, interpreting the complexities of the mind to the public. Notable works include Psychiatry Today (1951), Case Histories in Psychosomatic Medicine (1952), Schizophrenia: Somatic Aspects (1957), Psychiatry for Students (1964), The Pathology of Sexual Deviation (1964), and What Freud Really Said (1965).