 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
|
|
|||||
|
 |
 |
Biography of Samuel Walker Griffith, SirName: Samuel Walker Griffith, SirBirth Date: June 21, 1845 Death Date: June 9, 1920 Place of Birth: Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, Australia Nationality: Australian Gender: Male Occupations: premier, justice, politician Samuel Walker Griffith, Sir Sir Samuel Walker Griffith (1845-1920), premier of Queensland and chief justice of Australia, was one of the ablest advocates of the federation of the Australian colonies and one of the greatest jurists produced by Australia in the 19th century.Samuel Griffith was born at Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, on June 21, 1845, the son of Edward Griffith and his wife, Mary Walker Griffith. Edward Griffith was a Congregational minister who migrated with his family to Queensland in 1854. The family finally settled in Brisbane in 1860.Samuel Griffith was educated at the University of Sydney, where he received a baccalaureate in 1863 with first-class honors in classics, mathematics, and natural science. In 1865 he was awarded the T. S. Mort traveling fellowship and visited Europe, where he became fascinated with Italy and developed the interest and skill in the Italian language which flowered in his widely acclaimed translations of The Inferno of Dante Alighieri (1908) and The Divina …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…interpreting the constitution. His natural stress on states' rights was not continued after his retirement in 1919, but he had set a high standard of meticulous analysis, objectivity, and great dignity.Knighted in 1886, Griffith died at Brisbane on June 9, 1920. In 1870 he had married Julia Janet Thomson, who survived him with one son and four daughters. Further Reading There is no up-to-date biography of Griffith. Austin Douglas Graham, The Life of the Right Hon. Sir Samuel Walker Griffith (1939), is useful. There are references to him in various legal reminiscences, including Philip A. Jacobs, Judges of Yesterday (1924), and Albert B. Piddington, Worshipful Masters (1929). Much of his federation work is covered in John Quick and Robert R. Garran, The Annotated Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth (1901), and his colonial political work in Charles A. Bernays, Queensland Politics during Sixty Years (1919).Joyce, R. B., Samuel Walker Griffith, St. Lucia, Queenlands; New York: University of Queensland Press, 1984. |