William Robert Grove

Sir William Robert Grove was a Welsh judge and physical scientist, born in Swansea on 11 July 1811, who anticipated the general theory of the conservation of energy and was a pioneer of fuel cell technology. He invented the Grove voltaic cell. He was the only child of a magistrate and deputy lieutenant of Glamorgan, was educated by private tutors, attended Brasenose College, Oxford to study classics and graduated in 1832. In 1835 he was called to the bar by Lincolns Inn and in the same year joined the Royal Institution and became a founder of the Swansea Literary and Philosophical Society. His presentations made his reputation and he was proposed for Fellowship of the Royal Society by distinguished men including Charles Wheatstone. He became the first professor of experimental philosophy at the London Institution in 1841 and was elected to the Council of the Royal Society in 1846, where he campaigned to modernise its charter and for the public funding of science.