Sir William Robert Grove, an English physicist, born in Swansea, July 14, 1811. He graduated at Oxford in 1833, was called to the bar in 1835, and from 1840 to 1847 was professor of natural philosophy at the London institution. In 1853 he was made queen's counsel, and afterward vice president of the royal society. His scientific researches have been chiefly in the field of electricity; and his contributions to philosophical publications, principally on this subject, are very numerous. A few only of his original researches can here be noticed. In 1839 he described in the "Philosophical Magazine " his new battery, much more powerful than any previous one, and still in general use under his name, in which platinum is substituted for the copper plate, and nitric for sulphuric acid. About the same time he made the discovery that if two pieces of gold are placed, one in a cell of nitric, and the other in one of hydrochloric acid, and the cells separated by an earthenware partition, no chemical action takes place; but if the two pieces are connected by a metallic wire, they are immediately attacked by the acids. In 1841 he described in the same journal a method of engraving the daguerreotype plate by galvanic action.

In January, 1842, Mr. Grove delivered a lecture before the London institution on the progress of physical science, in which he first announced what is now generally known as "the theory of the correlation of forces." In 1847 he published his essay on "The Correlation of Physical Forces," which has passed through several editions, and has been translated into various European languages. Among his numerous discoveries not already mentioned are the decomposition of water into free oxygen and hydrogen, the electricity of the flame of the blowpipe, electrical action produced by proximity without contact of dissimilar metals, molecular movements induced in metals by the electric current, and the conversion of electricity into mechanical force. He was president of the British association in 1866, was appointed a justice of the court of common pleas in 1871, and was knighted in 1872.