William Gregor (25 December 1761 – 11 June 1817) was the British clergyman and mineralogist who discovered the elemental metal titanium.
He was born in Trewarthenick, Cornwall, the son of Francis Gregor and Mary Copley and the brother of Francis Gregor, MP for Cornwall. 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 i...
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William Gregor (25 December 1761 – 11 June 1817) was the British clergyman and mineralogist who discovered the elemental metal titanium.
He was born in Trewarthenick, Cornwall, the son of Francis Gregor and Mary Copley and the brother of Francis Gregor, MP for Cornwall. 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. He proceeded to the MA and was ordained in the Church of England. He became vicar of St Mary's Church Diptford near Totnes Devon. He married Charlotte Anne Gwatkin in 1790 and they had one daughter.
After a brief interval at Bratton Clovelly, William and his family moved permanently to the rectory of Creed in Cornwall. Here, he began a remarkably accurate chemical analysis of Cornish minerals. In 1791, while studying ilmenite from the Manaccan valley, he isolated the calx of an unknown metal which he named manaccanite....
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