Alfred Newman Gilbey

Alfred Newman Gilbey (1901–1998) was a British Roman Catholic priest and monsignor. He was the longest-serving chaplain to the University of Cambridge, England. He has been described as the best-known Roman Catholic priest in England during the last quarter of the 20th century.

Gilbey was born in Mark Hall, Harlow, Essex, on 13 July 1901 to María Victorina de Ysasi y González and Newman Gilbey, wealthy gin and wine merchants. His great-grandfather was Don Manuel María González y Angel, founder of wine and sherry bodega González Byass. Educated by Jesuits at Beaumont College, he went on to study modern history at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1920, during which time he became chairman of the Fisher Society at the chaplaincy. He funded his own training as a priest at the Pontifical Beda College in Rome, being ordained "under his own patrimony" by Bishop Doubleday of Brentwood in 1929.

In 1932, Gilbey became Catholic chaplain to the University of Cambridge, residing at Fisher House. Gilbey exerted a quiet but considerable influence around the university, maintaining links with the colleges and overseeing many converts to Catholicism. He was instrumental in defending Fisher House, as from 1949 the Cambridge City Council planned to demolish the buildings in the area to make way for the Lion Yard development. After petitioning led by Gilbey, who maintained that the chaplaincy would be demolished "over his dead body", Fisher House was spared from the compulsory purchase order and remains standing to this day.

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