English clergyman and mineralogist · 1761–1817
William Gregor
William Gregor was a country vicar in Cornwall who discovered titanium in 1791 in black sand from a stream in his parish.
How Titanium was found
Gregor noticed a black, magnetic sand in a stream in the Manaccan valley. Analysing it, he found iron oxide and a reddish-brown calx of an unknown metal. He named the mineral menachanite, after the parish.
Four years later Martin Heinrich Klaproth found the same metal in rutile and named it titanium, after the Titans of Greek myth. When he learned of Gregor’s work he credited him with the discovery. The sand is ilmenite, still a major ore of titanium.
Life and career
Born 1761 · Died 1817
Gregor was born in Cornwall, studied at Cambridge and served as rector of Creed, near Grampound, for most of his life. Chemistry and mineralogy were his lifelong hobbies, alongside painting and music.
Discovered in the same era
Other elements identified within ten years of 1791.