Ernest Longstaffe (5 April 1884 – 23 November 1958) was an English composer, conductor, and radio producer.

He was born in Newport, Essex, the son of the landscape painter Edgar Longstaffe.^[1] He started his career in concert parties and summer variety shows.^[2] He wrote many tunes for the big band, including "When the Sergeant-Major's on Parade", first published in 1925, for which he wrote both words and music. He also wrote a musical comedy, His Girl, and the revue Up With the Lark.^[3]

Ernest Longstaffe made his first radio broadcasts in 1926, as composer and presenter of a variety programme, The Bee Bee Cabaret. He became a leading producer of music and variety programmes in the early days of the BBC, and also operated as the programmes' composer and conductor, often of the BBC Dance Orchestra.^[4] The BBC radio programmes that he produced included Palace of Varieties  – reportedly the favourite radio programme of King George VI  – and The Happidrome. Although none of his programmes were televised, Longstaffe insisted that all his radio performers wore stage costume when performing.^[2]

He retired from the BBC in 1949, but continued to appear on Palace of Varieties until shortly before his death,^[4] in hospital in London in 1958 at the age of 74.^[2][5]