William Gregor (25 December 1761 – 11 June 1817) was a British clergyman and mineralogist who discovered the elemental metal Titanium.
Early years
He was born at the Trewarthenick Estate in
Cornwall, the son of Francis Gregor and Mary Copley
[ and the brother of Francis Gregor, MP for Cornwall.][ Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry 1847. on Googlebooks, (Accessed 20 March 2008)] He was educated at Bristol Grammar School, where he became interested in chemistry, then after two years with a private tutor entered St John's College, Cambridge, graduating BA in 1784 and MA in 1787.[ cf. The Times, Monday, 18 June 1787; pg. 3; Issue 776; col C] He was ordained in the Church of England. He became vicar of St Mary's Church Diptford[ Diptford on Genuki website and Devon Libraries Local History page on Diptford(no mention of Gregor)] near Totnes, Devon. He married Charlotte Anne Gwatkin in 1790 and they had one daughter, Charlotte-Anne Gregor.[
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Discovery of titanium
After a brief interval at Bratton Clovelly, in 1793 William and his family moved permanently to the rectory of Creed in Cornwall. Here he continued his remarkably accurate chemical analysis of , most of which came from Cornwall, such as the zeolites found in gabbro on The Lizard. He also analysed wavellite, tourmaline, and the uranium minerals torbernite and autunite, the arsenate scorodite, the lead mineral mimetite and the nickel mineral niccolite,[ Later in 1791, Martin Heinrich Klaproth discovered what is now known as the transition metal, titanium in the mineral rutile. Believing this to be a new discovery, Klaproth named it titanium after the Titans of Greek Mythology, but eventually it was clarified that Gregor made the discovery first. Gregor was credited with the discovery, but the element kept the name chosen by Klaproth. Gregor later found titanium in corundum from Tibet, and in a tourmaline from a local tin mine.
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Death and legacy
Gregor was made an honorary member of the Geological Society of London on its inception in 1807, and was a founding member of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall in 1814.
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