GROVE, Sir WILLIAM ROBERT ( 1811-96). An English physicist, born at Swansea. He grad uated at Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1832 ; was called to the bar in 1835, and began the practice of law, but left it for the study of physics. He was professor of experimental philosophy in the London Institution from 1840 to 1847, was a member for some time of the council of the Royal Society, and in 1847 received the Royal Medal for a paper on "The Gas Voltaic Battery." Returning to the law, he became prominent in the South Wales and Chester circuits. He became a justice of common pleas in 1871, and in the following year was knighted. Afterwards he became judge of the High Court of Justice, from which posi tion, however, he retired in 1887, and thereafter until his death devoted himself to scientific in vestigations. In 1842 he delivered a lecture on "The Progress of Physical Science," in which he propounded for the first time the doctrine that the so-called forces of nature, such as heat, elec tricity, etc., are not essentially dissimilar; that
they are nothing but different modes of motion, different and mutually convertible forms of some thing which is called energy, and of which the most essential characteristic is its indestructi bility. Grove was thus one of the first to grasp and enunciate what Faraday has called "the highest law in physical science which our facul ties permit us to perceive—the conservation of force." These views were further developed in the famous essay on The Correlation of Physical Forces (1846). Grove published several works on subjects connected with electricity, containing the results of his acute experimental investiga tions. He also made important improvements in electrical apparatus, and invented a well-known galvanic battery which bears his name. See MAYER, JULIUS ROBERT VON.