William Gregor

William Gregory ( born December 25, 1761 Trewarthenick, Cornwall, England; † June 11, 1817 in Creed, Cornwall ) was an English clergyman and mineralogist.

Life

His parents were Francis and Mary Gregory (born Copley ). He attended Bristol Grammar School. In 1784 he made ​​at St. John's College, Cambridge, the master's degree and moved in the same year after Diptford in Devon, where he was vicar at St Mary's Church. He married Charlotte Anne Gwatkin 1790 and moved with her ​​into a parish house by Creed, where he analyzed many different minerals, which he had discovered in Cornwall.

1791 Gregor found in a mineral from the valley Menaccan (Cornwall) a previously unknown metal that he called Menachine. When Martin Heinrich Klaproth in 1795 also a new metal in a " red schorl " ( rutile) discovered, he named it Titanium after the Titans of Greek mythology. In 1797 it was recognized that both metals were identical, but the later assigned name Titan prevailed. The mineral, which was determined by Gregor as iron -titanium oxide ( FeTiO3 ), first received the name Menaccanit (also Menachanit, Menakanit or Menakan ), but was then Adolph Theodor Kupffer ( 1799-1865 ) called ilmenite.

Gregor was 1796-1800 additional minerals, in which titanium occurs such as in a Korundvarieät from Tibet and in tourmalines from a tin mine.

Reverend William Gregor died at the age of 55 from tuberculosis.