John Griffith

Sir John Purser Griffith (5 October 1848 – 21 October 1938) was a Welsh-born Irish civil engineer and politician.

Griffith was educated at Trinity College Dublin and gained a licence 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. 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. 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. In the 1930s he and his niece Sarah Purser, endowed the Purser Griffith Travelling Scholarship and the Purser Griffith Prize to the two best-performing students in European Art History at University College Dublin.

He died at Rathmines Castle in Dublin on 21 October 1938.