John Griffith

Who was John Griffith?

Sir John Purser Griffith was an Irish civil engineer.

John Griffith was educated at Trinity College Dublin and gained a license in civil engineering in 1868. He served a two-year apprenticeship under Dr Bindon Blood Stoney, the Engineer in Chief of the Dublin Port and Docks, before working as assistant to the county surveyor of County Antrim. He returned to Dublin in 1871 and worked as Dr. Stoney's assistant, becoming the Chief Engineer in 1898 before retiring in 1913.

He served as president of the Institution of Civil Engineers in Ireland between 1887 and 1889 and of the Institution of Civil Engineers between 1919 and 1920. He was elected Commissioner of Irish Lights in 1913 and was a member of the Royal Commission on Canals and Waterways between 1906 and 1911.

Griffith purchased and drained the bogland at Pollagh, part of the Bog of Allen, a peat fuelled power station was built which drove an excavator, excess peat being taken by the Grand Canal for sale in Dublin. The site was sold to the Turf Development Board in 1936 who used it as a basis for all of their later peat fuelled power stations, the area is now a nature reserve.