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 appointed by government to superintend certain relief works in the counties of Cork, Kerry, and Limerick. Between 1822 and 1830 nearly 250 miles of road, some of the best in Ireland, were either constructed or improved under his supervision in what was then one of the wildest and most inaccessible parts of the country. In 1824 he was employed, preparatory to the ordnance survey, on a boundary survey to ascertain and mark the limits of every county, barony, parish, and townland in Ireland. On the passing of the Irish Valuation Act, 7 Geo. IV, cap. 62, in 1827, the object of which was to obtain a uniform and relative valuation of the several counties, baronies, parishes, and townlands in the country for the purpose of county assessment, Griffith, who had greatly assisted the chief secretary, [q. v.], in drafting it, was appointed commissioner of valuation, and continued to discharge the duties of that post till he was relieved of it by Mr. Ball Greene in 1868. The method of valuation adopted by him was that which he had learnt in Scotland, and was based on an examination of the active soil and subjacent rock (Report of Select Committee, House of Commons, 1869, p. 200). From 1830 onwards his duties became so numerous that there was hardly a work of public importance undertaken in Ireland, including the improvement of the navigation of the Shannon, the sanitation of the Royal Barracks in Dublin, and the erection of the National Gallery and Museum of Natural History, in which he was not consulted or which he did not personally superintend. In 1846, at a time when the public service was severely taxed by the great famine, he was appointed deputy-chairman, and in 1850 chairman of the Irish board of works, and himself managed the departments of land improvement and thorough drainage. This post he resigned in 1864, but he was afterwards retained as an unpaid commissioner. In 1851 he was made an honorary LL.D. of Trinity College, Dublin, and in 1858 Lord Palmerston rewarded his public services by creating him a baronet. He died on 22 Sept. 1878 at his house in Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin. He married in 1812 Maria Jane, eldest daughter of George Waldie, esq., of Hendersyde Park, Kelso, and was succeeded by his only son, Sir George Richard Waldie Griffith (1820-1889).

For a long period Griffith occupied a high position in society, and numbered among his friends the chief scientific men of his age. His ‘Geological Map of Ireland,’ revised in 1836, and published in its final form by the ordnance board in 1855, fully entitles him to rank as the ‘father of Irish geology;’ but he is chiefly known by his work as commissioner of valuation. He was a member of several scientific societies, and besides the works already mentioned, he drew up a ‘Geological and Mining Survey of the Connaught Coal District,’ and contributed many papers on the geology of Ireland to the ‘Transactions’ and the ‘Proceedings’ of the Geological Society, the ‘Journal of the Geological Society of Dublin,’ the ‘British Association Reports,’ the ‘Philosophical Magazine,’ &c. He also published ‘A Synopsis of the Carboniferous Limestone Fossils of Ireland,’ which contains 450 new species collected by himself and his friends, prepared under his direction by Frederick M'Coy of Dublin. His geological specimens are now in the museum of the Royal Dublin Society.



GRIFFITH, WALTER (d. 1779), captain in the navy, of an old family long settled in Merionethshire, was promoted to be a lieutenant in the navy on 7 May 1755, and served in that rank on board the Royal George when she carried Lord Anson's flag in the summer of 1758, and under Hawke in 1759 till 4 June, when he was promoted to the command of the Postilion sloop. On 23 June, writing from Sheerness, he reported his having taken up the command; on 24 June he acknowledged an order to command the Argo during the illness of her captain; and on 16 July wrote that, Captain Tinker being recovered, he had returned to the Postilion. These dates seem to throw great doubt on the accuracy of Charnock's statement that, on 24 June 1759, Griffith married the widow of Lord George Bentinck, who died 1 March 1759 (, Peerage, ii. 138). In September 1759 he was appointed to the temporary command of the Gibraltar frigate, and, being attached to the grand fleet off Brest, was fortunate enough to fall in with the French fleet on 15 Nov. After watching it carefully, he despatched full intelligence to Hawke and to the admiralty, while he himself went to warn Admiral Brodrick, then blockading Cadiz. His conduct on this occasion called forth an unusually warm encomium from the admiralty, as well as a direct