William Grylls Adams FRS (18 February 1836 in Laneast, Cornwall – 10 April 1915) was professor of Natural Philosophy at King's College, London.

His research in optics yielded the discovery that certain materials, notably selenium, produce an electric current when exposed to light.

[3] In 1863 Adams moved to King's College, London, where he worked under James Clerk Maxwell as a natural philosophy lecturer.

[3] In 1839, Alexandre Edmond Becquerel (1820–1891) had discovered that illumination of one of two metal plates in a dilute acid changed the electromotive force (EMF).

[3] In doing this, he was able to research “the optical axes of biaxial crystals.”[3] In 1876, Adams and Richard Evans Day discovered that illuminating a junction between selenium and platinum has a photovoltaic effect.

Among these were the Department of Science and Art and the universities of Cambridge and London, where he held the title of "examiner" in the field of physics from 1879 to 1892.

He would later die here on 10 April 1915 and was survived by his wife, Mary Dingle, and three children.”[3][13] William Grylls Adams in libraries (WorldCat catalog)