GRIFFITH, WALTER (1727 - 1779), captain R.N.

Born 15 May 1727, had a distinguished career which is described in the D.N.B. and (more fully) in Montgomeryshire worthies . He went to sea at sixteen, took part in the war of the Austrian succession till 1748, and was afterwards (till 1750) on the West India station. Recommissioned in 1753, he was captain in 1759 and rendered valuable service in the actions which led up to the battle of Quiberon Bay. From 1760 to 1763 (when he retired) he was on the Mediterranean. The war of American independence recalled him to active service, and he was killed off S. Lucia, 18 December 1779. The D.N.B. statement that he was of an old Merioneth family needs rectifying. He was in fact the younger son of Ralph Griffith, of Bron-gain in Llanfechain, Montgomeryshire - see J. E. Griffith, Pedigrees, 119, 233. The statement in Enwogion Cymru: a Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Welshmen that he was born 'at the mansion of his very ancient family at Caerhun ', near Conway, is in conflict with that in Montgomeryshire worthies , which places the event at Bron-gain, with greater probability. There may be confusion between the Walter Griffith here noticed and his nephew, also Walter Griffith and also R.N., son of his elder brother Ralph Griffith of Brongain, who married as his first wife Catherine Jones, heiress of the Davieses of Caerhun (Griffith, op. cit., 233); the younger Walter Griffith (who in 1798 took the surname Booth) was the son of a second marriage.

Author

• Emeritus Professor Robert Thomas Jenkins, (1881 - 1969)

Published date: 1959

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