Alfred Gordon Gaydon (26 September 1911 – 16 April 2004) was a leading spectroscopist and combustion scientist. He was brought up at Surbiton, Surrey, where he attended Kingston Grammar School. There he became a keen oarsman, later rowing forImperial College, London, and Kingston Rowing Club. In 1929 he graduated in Physics from the Royal College of Science (now Imperial College) and, after a period of post graduate study there accepted a post at the Shirley Institute of the Cotton Research Association near Manchester. He died in 2004. He had married Phillis Gaze in 1940.