Sir Richard John Griffith
Bt. FRS FRSE
Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...
FGS LLD (20 September 1784 – 22 September 1878), was an Irish geologist, mining engineer and chairman of the Board of Works of Ireland, who completed the first complete geological map of Ireland and was the author of the valuation of Ireland; subsequently known as
Griffith's Valuation
Griffith's Valuation was a boundary and land valuation survey of Ireland completed in 1868.
Griffith's background
Richard John Griffith started to value land in Scotland, where he spent two years in 1806-1807 valuing terrain through the examinati ...
.
Biography
![Hume_Street_door](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Hume_Street_door.jpg)
Griffith was born in
Hume Street, Dublin
Hume Street (; ) is a street in central Dublin located between Ely Place and St. Stephen's Green. It is named after Sir Gustavus Hume, 3rd Baronet (c.1670–1731) and his family.
Most of the south side of the street is taken up by the former C ...
, Ireland on 20 September 1784, the son of
Richard Griffith, MP of Millicent House, and Charity Yorke Bramston, daughter of John Bramston of
Oundle
Oundle () is a market town on the left bank of the River Nene in North Northamptonshire, England, which had a population of 5,735 at the time of the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 census. It is north of London and south-west of Peterborough ...
. His paternal grandmother was the acclaimed actress, essayist and novelist,
Elizabeth Griffith
Elizabeth Griffith (1727 – 5 January 1793) was an 18th-century Welsh-born dramatist, fiction writer, essayist and actress, who lived and worked in Ireland.
Biography
Elizabeth Griffith was born in Glamorgan, Wales, to Dublin theater manager ...
.
He went to school in
Portarlington and later, while attending school in Rathangan, his school was attacked by the rebels during the
rebellion of 1798
The Irish Rebellion of 1798 ( ga, Éirí Amach 1798; Ulster-Scots: ''The Hurries'') was a major uprising against British rule in Ireland. The main organising force was the Society of United Irishmen, a republican revolutionary group influenced ...
. He also studied in
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
.
In 1799 he obtained a commission in the
Royal Irish Artillery
The Royal Irish Artillery was an Irish regiment of the British army in the 18th century. It was formed in 1755 as The Artillery Company of Ireland. The name was changed in 1760 to The Royal Regiment of Irish Artillery.
They were recruited all over ...
, but a year later, when the corps was incorporated with that of Great Britain, he retired, and devoted his attention to
civil engineering
Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads, bridges, canals, dams, airports, sewage ...
and mining. He studied chemistry, mineralogy and mining for two years in London under
William Nicholson, and afterwards examined the mining districts in various parts of England,
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
and
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
.
While in
Cornwall
Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...
he discovered ores of nickel and
cobalt
Cobalt is a chemical element with the symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. The free element, pr ...
in material that had been rejected as worthless. He completed his studies under
Robert Jameson
Robert Jameson
Robert Jameson FRS FRSE (11 July 1774 – 19 April 1854) was a Scottish naturalist and mineralogist.
As Regius Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh for fifty years, developing his predecessor John ...
and others at Edinburgh, was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh
The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...
in 1807, a member of the newly established
Geological Society of London
The Geological Society of London, known commonly as the Geological Society, is a learned society based in the United Kingdom. It is the oldest national geological society in the world and the largest in Europe with more than 12,000 Fellows.
Fe ...
in 1808, and in the same year, he returned to Ireland.
In 1809, he was appointed by the commissioners to inquire into the nature and extent of the bogs in Ireland, and the means of improving them. In 1812 he was elected Professor of Geology and Mining Engineer to the
Royal Dublin Society
The Royal Dublin Society (RDS) ( ga, Cumann Ríoga Bhaile Átha Cliath) is an Irish philanthropic organisation and members club which was founded as the 'Dublin Society' on 25 June 1731 with the aim to see Ireland thrive culturally and economi ...
. Shortly afterwards he expressed his intention of preparing a geological map of Ireland. During subsequent years he made many surveys and issued many reports on mineral districts in Ireland, and these formed the foundation of his first geological map of the country (1815). He also succeeded
Dr. Richard Kirwan as government inspector of mines in Ireland. In 1822 Griffith became engineer of public works in
Cork
Cork or CORK may refer to:
Materials
* Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product
** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container
***Wine cork
Places Ireland
* Cork (city)
** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...
,
Kerry
Kerry or Kerri may refer to:
* Kerry (name), a given name and surname of Gaelic origin (including a list of people with the name)
Places
* Kerry, Queensland, Australia
* County Kerry, Ireland
** Kerry Airport, an international airport in Count ...
and
Limerick
Limerick ( ; ga, Luimneach ) is a western city in Ireland situated within County Limerick. It is in the province of Munster and is located in the Mid-West which comprises part of the Southern Region. With a population of 94,192 at the 2016 ...
, and was occupied until 1830 in repairing old roads and in laying out many miles of new roads in some of the most inaccessible parts of the country.
Meanwhile, in 1825, he was appointed by the government to carry out a boundary survey of Ireland. He was to mark the boundaries of every county, barony, civil parish and townland in preparation for the first
Ordnance Survey
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. He was also called upon to assist in the preparation of a parliamentary Bill to provide for the general valuation of Ireland. This Act was passed in 1826, and he was appointed Commissioner of Valuation in 1827, but did not start work until 1830 when the new 6" maps became available from the Ordnance Survey and which he was required to use as provided for by statute. He continued to work on this until 1868. On
Griffith's valuation
Griffith's Valuation was a boundary and land valuation survey of Ireland completed in 1868.
Griffith's background
Richard John Griffith started to value land in Scotland, where he spent two years in 1806-1807 valuing terrain through the examinati ...
the various local and public assessments were made.
His extensive investigations furnished him with ample material for improving his geological map, and the second edition was published in 1835. The third edition on a larger scale (1 in. to 4 m.) was issued under the
Board of Ordnance
The Board of Ordnance was a British government body. Established in the Tudor period, it had its headquarters in the Tower of London. Its primary responsibilities were 'to act as custodian of the lands, depots and forts required for the defence ...
in 1839, and it was further revised in 1855. For this work and his other services to science, he was awarded the
Wollaston medal
The Wollaston Medal is a scientific award for geology, the highest award granted by the Geological Society of London.
The medal is named after William Hyde Wollaston, and was first awarded in 1831. It was originally made of gold (1831–1845), t ...
by the Geological Society in 1854. In 1850 he was made chairman of the Irish Board of Works, and in 1858 he was created a baronet.
After research in the 20th century, is now known that to a large extent the improvements of detail in the maps which Griffith was praised for and the geological research for Griffith's papers were down to
Patrick Ganly, whose pioneering work went entirely uncredited by Griffith.
He died at his residence, 2 Fitzwilliam Place in Dublin, on 22 September 1878 in his 95th year. At the time of his death, he was the oldest surviving fellow of the Geological Society of London and was the last survivor of the long-since disbanded Royal Irish Regiment of Artillery. He was buried alongside his wife, Maria Jane (née Waldie m. 21 Sep 1812) in
Mount Jerome Cemetery
Mount is often used as part of the name of specific mountains, e.g. Mount Everest.
Mount or Mounts may also refer to:
Places
* Mount, Cornwall, a village in Warleggan parish, England
* Mount, Perranzabuloe, a hamlet in Perranzabuloe parish, C ...
, Harold's Cross, Dublin; on his grave is the epitaph: ''Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, Serving the Lord''.
Family
In 1812 he married Maria Jane Waldie of Hendersyde Park in
Kelso. They had one son,
Sir George Richard Waldie-Griffith, 2nd Baronet.
Arms
Publications
*''Outline of the Geology of Ireland'' (1838)
*''Notice respecting the Fossils of the Mountain Limestone of Ireland, as compared with those of Great Britain, and also with the Devonian System'' (1842)
*''A Synopsis of the Characters of the Carboniferous Limestone Fossils of Ireland'' (1844) (with
F McCoy)
*''A Synopsis of the Silurian Fossils of Ireland'' (1846) (with F McCoy)
See memoirs in ''Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.'' xxxv. 39; and ''Geol. Mag.'', 1878, p. 524, with bibliography.
References
*
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Griffith, Richard John
1784 births
1878 deaths
Baronets in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom
Burials at Mount Jerome Cemetery and Crematorium
Irish geologists
Fellows of the Geological Society of London
Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
Scientists from Dublin (city)
Wollaston Medal winners