John Wilbye (baptized 7 March 1574 – September 1638) was an English madrigal composer.The son of a tanner, he was born at Brome, Suffolk, England. (Brome is near Diss.)Wilbye received the patronage of the Cornwallis family of Brome Hall.Wilbye was employed for decades at Hengrave Hall, near Bury St. Edmunds, where he seems to have been recruited in the 1590s by Elizabeth Kitson who was married to the property's owner, Sir Thomas Kitson (or Kytson). The Kitsons also had a long association with the composer Edward Johnson, who was more than twenty years older than Wilbye, and began working at Hengrave in the 1570s.