Australian lawyer and statesman, born at Merthyr Tydvil on the 21st of June 1845, the son of the Rev. Edward Griffith, afterwards of Brisbane. He was educated at the university of Sydney, graduating in 1863 and winning a travelling fellowship two years later. In 1867 he was called to the Queensland bar, and was also called in New South Wales and Victoria. He became Q.C. in 1876. He entered the Legislative Assembly of Queensland (1872), was Attorney-General 187478 and again 189093, was Minister for Public Instruction 187679 and 188384 and for Public Works 187879, and was Premier of Queensland from 188388 and again from 189093. From 1893 to 1903 he was Chief Justice of Queensland and from 1899 to 1903 also Lieutenant-Governor. In 1903 he became the first Chief Justice of the Australian Commonwealth and held that office until 1919. He was the chief bulwark of the Conservative cause in Australia and his cold, clear intellect, never deflected by passion and rarely by sympathy, has left a deep stamp on Australian national life. His early draft of a constitution for the Federation was rejected because it was not popular enough, but its one essential check remained in the later popular constitutionthat of a High Court with supreme power over the Executive and the Legislature. He published The Queensland Criminal Code, as well as a translation of Dantes Divina Commedia (1912). He died at Brisbane on the 9th of August 1920.