Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 23.djvu/244

Griffith  [C. H. and Thompson Cooper in Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. vi. 367; Dwnn's Heraldic Visitation of Wales, ii. 167; Collect. Topogr. et Geneal. vii. 362.]  GRIFFITH, RICHARD, M.D. (1635?–1691), physician, born about 1635, was educated at Eton, though not on the foundation. On the recommendation of Cromwell and the council of state, he was appointed by the parliamentary visitors to a fellowship at University College, Oxford, on 1 Sept. 1654 (Register, Camd. Soc. p. 399). He graduated B.A. 7 July 1657, M.A. 3 May 1660, and had thoughts of becoming a preacher, but ‘being not minded to conform he left the college, and applied his mind to the study of physic’ (, Fasti Oxon., ed. Bliss, ii. 198, 224). He took the degree of M.D. at Caen in Normandy on 12 June 1664, was admitted an honorary fellow of the College of Physicians in the following December, and having been created a fellow by the charter of James II, was admitted as such on 12 April 1687. He was censor in 1688 and 1690, and registrar for 1690. For some years he practised at Richmond, Surrey, but died in the parish of St. Nicholas Acons, London, in September 1691 (Probate Act Book, P.C.C.1691,f.152), and was buried in the church of Datchet, Buckinghamshire, near his deceased wife and child. In his will, dated on 4 Sept. 1691, and proved on the 8th (P.C.C. 138, Vere), he mentions property at various places in Surrey and houses in Old Street, St. Luke's, London. He married, first by license dated 18 Jan. 1678-9, Miss Jane Wheeler of Datchet (, London Marriage Licences, ed. Foster, col. 591). By her, who died in 1680 (Letters of Administration, P.C.C., 7 June 1680), he had a son Richard, baptised at Richmond on 13 March 1679-80 (parish register), and buried with his mother at Datchet. His second wife, Mary, daughter of Richard Blackman, apparently of Punchins, near Stoke-next-Guildford, Surrey, survived him without issue. Griffith was the author of a somewhat venomous treatise entitled ‘A-la-Mode Phlebotomy no good fashion; or the copy of a Letter to Dr. [Francis] Hungerford [of Reading], complaining of…the phantastick behaviour and unfair dealing of some London physitians… Whereupon a fit occasion is taken to discourse of the profuse way of Blood-Letting,’ &c, 8vo, London, 1681. The immediate cause of Griffith's wrath was the supercilious treatment recommended by a London physician (formerly a 'journeyman' to Dr. Willis), who on being summoned to see an aged lady patient of his at Richmond, insisted on her being let blood, which no doubt accelerated her death. Wood (loc. cit.), followed by Harwood (Alumni Eton. p. 229), confuses Griffith with another Richard Griffith, a native of Abinger, Surrey, who passed from Eton to King's College, Cambridge, in 1629, and died in college at the close of 1642 (cf. Addit. (Cole} MS. 5816, ff. 121, 174).

[Information from J. Challenor Smith, esq.; Reg. of Visitors of Univ. of Oxford (Camd. Soc.), pp. 174, 399, 557; Munk's Coll. of Phys., 1878, i. 470-1.]  GRIFFITH, RICHARD (d. 1719), captain in the navy, is said by Charnock to have been the son of Richard Griffith, a captain in the navy temp. Charles II. This is extremely doubtful; he seems to have been of humble origin, and of very imperfect education, scarcely able to write. In 1691 he was, it appears, commander of a small merchant ship, or pink, which was captured by a French privateer, and which he recaptured in the night with the aid of a boy; clapping on the hatches, it is said, and overpowering and throwing overboard the sleeping watch. For this exploit he was ordered by their majesties a gold chain and medal, and appointed captain of the Mary galley, 22 April 1692. The boy also received a medal (Griffith to Burchett, 14 June 1701; Admiralty Minute, 2 Dec. 1692). At La Hogue the Mary galley was tender to the admiral, and ‘was sent the first express to the queen with the news of beating and burning the enemy's ships, for which,’ wrote Griffith nine years afterwards, ‘her majesty ordered me a royal bounty of 300l., which as yet I have not received.’ He was then employed in convoy service to Newfoundland and to Lisbon, in cruising on the coast of France for intelligence, and at the bombardment of St. Malo with Benbow, after which he was sent into the Mediterranean, and early in 1695, being then at Cagliari, was ordered by Russell to go to Messina, to take command of the Trident, a French ship of 54 guns, which, together with the Content, had lately been captured by an English squadron. After bringing the Trident to England, and some months spent in convoy service, Griffith, still in the Trident, was, early in 1697, ordered out to the West Indies in the squadron which joined Vice-admiral John Nevell [q. v.] at Barbadoes, and met. M. de Pointis off Cartagena on 28-9 May. According to Griffith's account the Trident was the only ship engaged ; and she, being the weathermost ship, was for some time surrounded by the enemy and might have been taken, had they not been more intent on getting clearoff with the spoils of Cartagena. She was afterwards one of the