Born at Weston-super-Mare in the west of England, Love studied at Cambridge University and was a fellow there from 1886 until 1889. In 1889 he moved to Oxford to take up the Sedleian Chair in Mathematics and remained there for the rest of his career.

Love's most important research was in the theory of deformable media and in theoretical geophysics. He also did important work in the theory of waves and in ballistics. He wrote a major two-volume treatise on elasticity – A Treatise on the Mathematical Theory of Elasticity (1892–93) – that went through several subsequent editions. It soon established itself as a classic and is still a standard work of reference. Love's work on geophysics led to a considerable number of practical discoveries. Among his original concepts now much used in geophysics are the so-called Love numbers and Love waves. Love numbers play a key role in tidal theory. In the formal theory of Love waves, which are surface seismic waves, he was building on and much improving work begun by Siméon-Denis Poisson, Sir George Stokes, and Lord Rayleigh. This was perhaps Love's single most significant piece of mathematical work.