The following is a list of notable people educated at Gonville and Caius College at the University of Cambridge, including alumni of Gonville Hall, as the college was known from 1348 to 1351, and notable alumni since.
Gonville and Caius College alumni include politicians, civil servants, academics, athletes and business leaders, including 14 Nobel Prize winners, the second-most of any Oxbridge college after Trinity College, Cambridge. Seven of these 14 were students at the college: Charles Scott Sherrington (1932, in Medicine), James Chadwick (1935, in Physics), Francis Crick (1962, in Medicine), Antony Hewish (1974, in Physics), Richard Stone (1984, in Economics), J. Michael Kosterlitz (2016, in Physics), and Peter J. Ratcliffe (2019, in Medicine).
The college also has a long-standing association with medical teaching and has educated a number of significant physicians, including John Caius, William Harvey (a pioneer of anatomy), Francis Crick (joint discoverer of the structure of DNA) and Howard Florey (co-developer of Penicillin).
Academics Biologists and chemists Ed Anderson – chemist Richard St. Barbe Baker – founder Men of the Trees George Thomas Bettany – biologist Isaac Henry Burkill – botanist Lawrence Michael Brown – material scientist Thomas Cavalier-Smith – evolutionary biologist Philip S. Corbet – entomologist Robert Percival Cook – biochemist Ronald Fisher – biologist and statistician Bernard Kettlewell - entomologist and evolutionist John William Scott Macfie – entomologist Stephen Marchant – ornithologist Dominic Serventy – Australian ornithologist and conservationist E. Barton Worthington – ecologist and science administrator
Economists Victoria Bateman – Gonville and Caius economics studies director Peter Thomas Bauer – Hungarian development economist Bevan Morris – Maharishi University of Management president Ivan Png – Singaporean economist Richard Stone – Nobel Prize-winning economist
Geographers Ralph Alger Bagnold – explorer and geologist John Brereton – chronicler of the first European voyage to New England, 1602 Piers Blaikie – geographer John Frederick Blake – clergyman and geologist Gordon Manley – climatologist Josh West (born 1977) – British-American Earth sciences professor
Edward Adrian Wilson – explorer who died with Robert Falcon Scott in the Antarctic
Historians
Tobias Abse – historian Francis Blomefield – historian of Norfolk Christopher N. L. Brooke – Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History and life fellow of the college Rajnarayan Chandavarkar – historian of South Asia Alfred Cobban – historian of France Geoffrey Crossick – historian and Vice-Chancellor of London University I. E. S. Edwards – egyptologist, leading expert on Egyptian pyramids David Feldman – historian Orlando Figes – historian Harold James – historian Colin Kidd – historian Simon Sebag Montefiore – historian and journalist Richard Overy – historian Andrew Roberts – historian Norman Stone – historian Lars Tharp – historian and broadcaster Stephen Tuck – historian and Pembroke College, Oxford fellow Lucy Beall Lott – historian and epidermolysis bullosa activist
Law Vincent A. De Gaetano – Former Chief Justice of Malta, former Judge of the European Court of Human Rights William Warwick Buckland – scholar of Roman Law, Regius Professor of Civil Law Henry Chauncy – scholar of law and antiquarian Graham J. Zellick – legal scholar and former Vice Chancellor of the University of London
Literature and languages James Adam – classicist D. R. Shackleton Bailey – classicist Robert Lubbock Bensly – orientalist Edward Valentine Blomfield – classicist Stanley Arthur Cook – Regius Professor of Hebrew Emily Hauser - classicist professor at University of Exeter William Ridgeway – classicists and Disney Professor of Archaeology A. C. Spearing – author, professor of English medieval literature Montgomery-Everard Lord - author of Freaky School, and “something of a polymath”
Mathematicians Alexander Brown – mathematician and educator in South Africa J. F. Cameron – mathematician, Master and Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University Harish-Chandra – mathematician Eugenia Cheng – mathematician John Horton Conway – mathematician Quentin Stafford-Fraser – computer scientist, and inventor of the webcam Richard D. Gill – mathematician George Green – mathematician Chandrashekhar Khare – mathematician John Venn – logician, inventor of the Venn diagram
Philosophers and Political Scientists Mantas Adomėnas – Lithuanian philosopher Tim Bale – political scientist Michael Joseph Oakeshott – philosopher
Physicists
Thomas Allibone – physicist Étienne Biéler – Canadian physicist Homi J. Bhabha – Indian nuclear physicist and father of India's nuclear programme Max Born – Nobel Prize-winning physicist Alec Broers – vice-chancellor of Cambridge University Cecil Reginald Burch – physicist and engineer Chuah Joon Huang – electronic engineer Sam Edwards – Welsh physicist David J. Farrar – aeronautical engineer Christopher Green – Regius professor of Physics Basil Schonland – physicist Alec David Young – aeronautical engineer
Theologians Henry Ainsworth – nonconformist theologian and scholar Thomas Allen – nonconformist minister and preacher Robert Allwood – clergyman in colonial Australia William Anderson – Bishop of Salisbury Arthur Rawson Ashwell – theologian William Ayerst – clergyman and missionary Thomas Bacon – 15th Master of the college Thomas Ball – Archdeacon of Chichester John Ballard – priest and conspirator in the Babington Plot Joshua Bassett – cleric and Master of Sidney Sussex College St. Vincent Beechey – clergyman and photographer George Bland – Archdeacon of Lindisfarne (1844–53) and Archdeacon of Northumberland Henry Bousfield – Bishop of Pretoria Thomas Braddock – clergyman and translator F. F. Bruce – biblical scholar Spencer Carpenter – clergyman and theologian Benedict Chapman – theologian and Master of the college John Clarke – clergyman and natural philosopher Samuel Clarke – clergyman and philosopher Charles Coates – cleric and antiquarian Jeremy Collier – theologian and theatre critic John Cosin – Bishop of Durham (1660–72) and Master of Peterhouse Arthur Crosse – Archdeacon of Furness Islwyn Davies – clergyman and theologian G. H. Pember – theologian Jeremy Taylor – author and cleric Richard Watson (Royalist priest) – clergyman, academic and poet
Artists, writers and musicians
Julian Anderson – composer Charles Frederick Barnwell – curator and antiquarian Robert Baron – poet Henry Bell – architect Edwin Keppel Bennett – poet Trevor Blakemore – poet“BLAKEMORE, Trevor Ramsey” in John Archibald Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses; a biographical list of all known students, graduates and holders of office at the University of Cambridge, from the earliest times to 1900 (Cambridge, University Press), Volume 1, Part 2, p. 290 Alain de Botton – popular philosophy writer Thomas Boyce – dramatist E. R. Braithwaite – novelist and critic of racial discrimination Thomas Broughton – clergyman and writer James Burrough – architect and Master of the college Arnold Cooke – composer William Clubbe – clergyman and poet Richard Cobbold – writer John Dighton – playwright and screenwriter Harold Monro – Poet, literary critic, and promoter of Modernism Charles Montagu Doughty – poet and explorer, author of Travels in Arabia Deserta Alexander Hawkins - jazz musician John Hookham Frere - poet, diplomat, and translator of Aristophanes Tim Hunkin – artist, inventor, author, cartoonist, engineer Geoff Nicholson – novelist Thomas Shadwell – playwright, Poet Laureate Joseph Thurston – poet William Wilkins – architect Hammond Witherley – singer"Witherley, Hammond" in C. L. S. Linnell, History and Register of Gresham's School 1555–1954 (Ipswich: W. S. Cowell Ltd, 1955), p. 39
Athletes Harold Abrahams – 100 metre Olympic gold medalist portrayed by actor Ben Cross in Chariots of Fire Gerry Alexander – cricketer Basil Allen – cricketer Frederick Arnold – rower and clergyman Harry Askew - Olympic long jumper (1948) Randolph Aston – rugby player Harold Bache – cricketer Andrew Baddeley – middle-distance runner Edward Baily – cricketer John Bateman-Champain – cricketer Iftikhar Bokhari – former Pakistani cricketer who played first-class cricket, 1952–1966 Charles Brune – cricketer Ernest Brutton – rugby player and cricketer William Cave – rugby player Arthur Ceely – cricketer Alexander Cowie – cricketer and poet Thomas Selby Egan – first cox to win The Boat Race for Cambridge University John Fairgrieve - Olympic sprinter (1948) Richard Geaves – international footballer John Grimshaw – creator of the National Cycle Network and the Sustrans charity Ronald Cove-Smith – England rugby team captain Michael Taylor – cricketer, historian, and member of the 2015 University Challenge championship team William Yatman – rower and artist Arthur Young – rugby player
Business and Technology
John Arbuthnott – businessman and peer Charles Barlow – businessman and philanthropist Vaughan Berry – financier Benj Conway - entrepreneur and diplomat Nigel Howard Croft – chairman of the ISO/TC 176 Thomas Gresham – founder of the Royal Exchange Anthony Habgood – chairman of Reed Elsevier and Whitbread Douglas Myers – businessman and philanthropist Dorabji Tata – Indian industrialist and philanthropist Adair Turner – businessman
Civil servants Edward Alderson – judge Jerome Alexander – High Court judge in Ireland Richard Baggallay – Conservative politician and judge of the Court of Appeal Nigel Baker – diplomat and former British ambassador to Bolivia and the Holy See Henry Bedingfield – judge Thomas Bedingfield – judge Anton Bertram – barrister and Chief Justice of Ceylon Henry Bickersteth – law reformer John Lindow Calderwood – lawyer and politician Alan Campbell – diplomat, former ambassador to Ethiopia and to Italy George William Chad – diplomat Alan Charlton – diplomat and former British ambassador to Brazil Christopher Clarke – Court of Appeal of England and Wales Robin Cooke – New Zealand's only judge to have sat in the House of Lords Samuel Cooke – judge Geoffrey Allan Crossley – former ambassador to Colombia and the Holy See Duncan Cumming – colonial administrator Alun Talfan Davies – Welsh judge Patrick Dean – British Ambassador to the United States George French – Chief Justice of Sierra Leone and the British Supreme Court for China and Japan John Hookham Frere – diplomat and author Colin Goad - Secretary General, IMCO, UN Peter Goldsmith – Attorney General for England and Wales Charles Kennedy – diplomat Dame Emily Lawson – head of the NHS COVID-19 vaccine programme John F. Lehman – American Secretary of the Navy and 9/11 Commission member Inagaki Manjirō – Japan's first Minister Resident in Siam Clive Sheldon – High Court judge Lester Paul Wright – Under Secretary at Department for Culture, Media and Sport Percy Wyn-Harris – colonial administrator and Governor of the Gambia
Film and television Simon Russell Beale – actor, author, and music historian Jimmy Carr – comedian and presenter of The Big Fat Quiz of the Year Mark Wing-Davey – actor and director Anatole de Grunwald – Russian British film producer and screenwriter Stephen Mangan – actor Holly Walsh – comedian Sophie Watts – film and media executive
Heads of state Percy Wyn-Harris – mountaineer, adventurer, and Governor of The Gambia
Media and journalism
Alistair Appleton – TV presenter Charles Beavan – law reporter Helen Castor – historian and BBC Radio 4 broadcaster Thomas Chenery – editor of The Times Mark Damazer – BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 4 Extra controller and Master of St Peter's College, Oxford Jonathan Davis – Financial Times and The Independent columnist David Elstein – media executive, founder of Channel 5 television Carolyn Fairbairn – media executive David Frost – broadcaster Tim Gardam – journalist and educator Andrew Gowers – journalist Christopher Helm – publisher Gideon Rachman – journalist Mick Rock – photographer