Person
Griffiths, John Alfred (1848 - 1933)
- Born
- 26 January 1848
Bethnal Green, England - Died
- 30 March 1933
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia - Occupation
- Engineer and Patent officer
Summary
John Griffiths was cited in the 1911 Encyclopaedia Brittanica as a world authority on windmill design. His firm, Griffiths Bros and Co., built some of the earliest windmills in Toowoomba, Queensland, selling the first Southern Cross model in 1903. The Southern Cross brand name was later extended to well-boring machines and associated equipment.
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Details
Born London, England, 26 January 1848. Died Brisbane 30 March 1933. Educated Royal School of Mines 1865-68 (Associate R.S.M. 1873) and Owens College Manchester (Whitworth Scholar 1870). Civil engineering, Gregson, Brown & Son, Middleton, U.K., 1868-71; London & N.W. Railways 1872; Western Australian Railways 1873-74; Toowoomba Foundry, Queensland, 1874-76; Queensland Railways 1876-78; Western Australian Railways 1878-79; assistant lecturer in engineering, Owens College Manchester 1880; B.Sc., Owens College, 1882; Engineer, Waste Water Meter Co., Liverpool, U.K., 1881-85; cycle manufacturer, Coventry, U.K., 1885-87; Assistant Engineer Normanton-Croydon Railway, Queensland, 1887-91; Engineer, Charters Towers, Queensland, 1892-93; Electricity Department, Penrith, N.S.W., 1894-95; Hydraulic Survey, Queensland, 1895-1900; Examiner of patents, Queensland, 1900-04; Commonwealth Patent Office, 1904-?
Published resources
Book Sections
- Gibbney, H. J., 'Griffiths, John Alfred (1848-1933), engineer' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 9: 1891 - 1939 Gil-Las, Bede Nairn and Geoffrey Serle, eds (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1983), pp. 121-122. https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/griffiths-john-alfred-6489. Details
Resources
- Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q24250385. Details
- 'Griffiths, John Alfred (1848-1933)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-1469807. Details
Resource Sections
- 'Griffiths, John Alfred', in Physics in Australia to 1945, R.W. Home, with the assistance of Paula J. Needham, Australian Science Archives Project, June 1995, http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/bsparcs/physics/P001675p.htm. Details
See also
- Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, Technology in Australia 1788-1988, Online edn, Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, Melbourne, 3 May 2000, http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/tia/index_g.html. Details
McCarthy, G.J.
Created: 20 October 1993, Last modified: 1 March 2018
- Foundation Supporter - Committee to Review Australian Studies in Tertiary Education