Henry Thomas Schafer was a British Victorian-era genre painter and sculptor, elected in 1889 to the Royal Society of British Artists.

Henry Thomas Schafer was the son of a London tailor, Adam Schaefer, who originally came to England from Waldeck in Germany. Schafer lived in north London throughout his life and was a renowned painter, sculptor and also worked as a picture restorer. At the age of fifteen Schafer was apprenticed to the painter, art dealer and picture restorer Raphael Pinti, to whom he remained in the employment of until his masters death in 1881.

He exhibited at the Royal Society, the Royal Academy, the Royal Scottish Academy, and other galleries starting in 1873. Several of his paintings have been widely reproduced and distributed in the form of posters.