Daniel Gralath was a German physicist and Bürgermeister (mayor) of Danzig.

Gralath was born in Danzig (Gdansk) in Poland of a well-to-do trade family. He had studied law and philosophy in Halle

Halle, Saxony-Anhalt

Halle is the largest city in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is also called Halle an der Saale in order to distinguish it from the town of Halle in North Rhine-Westphalia...

, then in Leyden and Marburg

Marburg

Marburg is a city in the state of Hesse, Germany, on the River Lahn. It is the main town of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district and its population, as of March 2010, was 79,911.- Founding and early history :...

 from 1728 to 1734. Later he became Ratsherr (councilman) and, in 1763, Bürgermeister (mayor) of Danzig. His father-in-law was Jacob Theodor Klein

Jacob Theodor Klein

Jacob Theodor Klein nickname Plinius Gedanensium was a Royal Prussian jurist, historian, botanist, mathematician and diplomat in service of Polish King August II the Strong.-Life:...

 (1685–1759), a city secretary and also a very distinguished scientist, nicknamed was Gedanensium Plinius. He died in Danzig.

As a physicist, Gralath worked on electricity

Electricity

Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...

, founded the Danzig Research Society

Danzig Research Society

The Danzig Research Society was founded in 1743 in the city of Danzig . The Societas Physicae Experimentalis , later renamed to Naturforschende Gesellschaft , is thus considered as one of the oldest research societies in Central and Eastern Europe.Already in 1670, the physician Israel Conradi...

, and repeated the experiments of Ewald Georg von Kleist with the Leyden jar

Leyden jar

A Leyden jar, or Leiden jar, is a device that "stores" static electricity between two electrodes on the inside and outside of a jar. It was invented independently by German cleric Ewald Georg von Kleist on 11 October 1745 and by Dutch scientist Pieter van Musschenbroek of Leiden in 1745–1746. The...

. Gralath improved the design and demonstrated its effects on a chain of 20 persons. He was also the first to combine several jars to make a battery

Battery (electricity)

An electrical battery is one or more electrochemical cells that convert stored chemical energy into electrical energy. Since the invention of the first battery in 1800 by Alessandro Volta and especially since the technically improved Daniell cell in 1836, batteries have become a common power...

. From 1747 to 1756, he published his "History of Electricity" with three volumes.