Alfred Newman Gilbey (13 July 1901–26 March 1998) was a BritishCatholicpriest andmonsignor. He was the longest-servingchaplain 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.^[1][2]

Gilbey was born at Mark Hall, nearHarlow, Essex, on 13 July 1901, fifth son of Newman Gilbey,JP and María Victorina deYsasi. Newman Gilbey's father, Alfred, of Wooburn House,Wooburn, Buckinghamshire, had founded a successful wine business with his brother, SirWalter Gilbey, 1st Baronet.^[3][4] A maternal great-grandfather was Don Manuel María González y Angel, founder of a Spanish wine and sherry bodegaGonzález Byass. Educated byJesuits atBeaumont College, he went on to study modern history atTrinity College, Cambridge in 1920, during which time he became chairman of theFisher Society at the chaplaincy; he was also a member theUniversity Pitt Club. He funded his own training as a priest at thePontifical Beda College inRome, being ordained "under his own patrimony" byBishop Doubleday of Brentwood in 1929.^[2]

In 1932, Gilbey became Catholic chaplain to the University of Cambridge, residing atFisher House. Gilbey exerted a quiet but considerable influence around the university, maintaining links with the colleges and overseeing many converts to Catholicism. He was atraditionalist Catholic, was against theequality of the sexes, and was strongly opposed to women being admitted to the university; when women were fully admitted to the university in 1948, he continued to refuse to allow women to become part of the chaplaincy.^[1] He was instrumental in defending Fisher House, as from 1949 theCambridge 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 thecompulsory purchase order and remains standing to this day.^[5] In 1950, Gilbey was made adomestic prelate byPope Pius XII, and therefore granted the titleMonsignor.^[1]

Gilbey retired from the chaplaincy in 1965, the final year of theSecond Vatican Council. Unhappy with the Fisher Society's decision to admit women to the chaplaincy, who had been allowed to be full members of the university in 1947, Gilbey decided to leave rather than compromise his traditionalist beliefs. He took up permanent residence at theTravellers Club in London, remaining active into his nineties.^[5] During this time he wrote thecatechetical book,We Believe (1983), making a trip to theUnited States in 1995 to promote it.^[1]

In early 1998, Gilbey moved to Nazareth House inHammersmith,London, anursing home. He died two months later, on 26 March 1998. His funeral was held in theBrompton Oratory on 6 April with aTridentineSolemn Mass. He is buried in the courtyard of Fisher House in Cambridge. ARequiem Mass for the repose of his soul is sung, again in the Tridentine form, annually at Trinity College.^[6]

• Couve de Murville, M. N. L. (September 2004). "Gilbey, Alfred Newman (1901–1998)".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/69511. (Subscription,Wikipedia Library access orUK public library membership required.)

• 1901 births
• 1998 deaths
• Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
• 20th-century English Roman Catholic priests
• Catholic Church in Cambridge
• Burials in Cambridgeshire

• Use dmy dates from April 2022
• Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the ODNB