John Raymond Postgate (24 June 1922 – 22 October 2014), FRS was an English microbiologist and writer, latterly Professor Emeritus of Microbiology at the University of Sussex. Postgate's research in microbiology investigated nitrogen fixation, microbial survival, and sulphate-reducing bacteria. He worked for the Agricultural Research Council's Unit of Nitrogen Fixation from 1963 until he retired, by then its Director, in 1987. In 2011 he was described as a "father figure of British microbiology".