Sir Joseph Henry Gilbert FRS (1 August 1817 – 23 December 1901) was an English chemist, noteworthy for his long career spent improving the methods of practical agriculture.

One of the key findings of Lawes and Gilbert was that cereal crops took up nitrogen from the soil, contrary to the ideas of Justus von Liebig who held that it was obtained only from the air.

On his return to England from Germany he acted for a year or so as assistant to his old master A. T. Thomson at University College, and in 1843, after spending a short time in the study of calico dyeing and printing near Manchester, accepted the directorship of the chemical laboratory at the agricultural experiment station established by John Bennet Lawes at Rothamsted, near St.

The work which he carried out in collaboration with Lawes involved the application of chemistry, meteorology, botany, animal and vegetable physiology, and geology to the methods of practical agriculture.

For six years from 1884 he filled the Sibthorpian chair of rural economy at Oxford,[5] and he was also an honorary professor at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester.