WILLIAM GRIFFITH, F.R.G.S., F.G.S., M.F.I.M.E.
THE Rand and Western Australia are powerful competitors for the prizes which English capitalists offer. Neither has had an easy lot, nor is embowered in a country where vine and fig tree and honeycomb abound. Each has demanded the very choicest of enterprise and hardihood to develop it, and herculean labours to make it profitable. These two goldfields of the last decades of the nineteenth century promise great things.
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Photo by WILLIAM GRIFFITH. Greenham & Evans. |
South Africa has to everlastingly thank the unresting enterprise of her leading colonists. Cecil Rhodes is as a mountain of strength at which the world gazes, and he is not alone in the work of development, extension, and aggrandisement. Many brave names—men who willingly staked their lives in their daring ventures—are associated with his, and among them Western Australia at the present moment holds one, Mr. William Griffith, who, engaged in superintending extensive mining interests in Western Australia, passed a brilliant career in South Africa. His reputation was won by deeds of bravery and skilful pioneering discoveries. His life teems with romantic exploits of human interest.
William Griffith was born in Wales in 1853, and educated at the Carnarvon High School, North Wales. On completing his education he became partner in a slate quarry. Bent on amassing a cumulative knowledge of mining, he took a rotatory course of study and practice in each of its departments. In the offices, mines, and mechanical branch of this extensive property he served with vigour, and by diligence realised for himself extensive knowledge in a short time. He soon embarked for Victoria. In the Ovens and Beechworth districts, in that colony, he pursued mining with unabated eagerness. From these historic scenes he repaired to the Burra Burra copper mines in South Australia, where for some considerable time he was engrossed in the various methods of mining operations. Having learnt his lesson in Australia he returned to Wales, and immediately took up some Welsh gold mines. He was largely interested in them for several years, and altered the general management. Then he sailed for South Africa, and attached himself to the diamond industry in Kimberley. He travelled over considerable portions of the fields, and gathered experience.
Again he went to the homeland to spend another period in the slate mines of Wales. His interests at home were altogether too wealthy to admit of protracted absence from them. His stay was short, and he returned to South Africa, after receiving certain commissions from various London companies to report on mines and to invest money. These responsible duties were performed with great satisfaction, and his newly-acquired trust necessitated extensive and exhaustive acquaintance with every quarter of the fields.
From this period he played a conspicuous part in the history of South Africa. His energetic capabilities, and his mental resources, soon attracted the vigilant attention of men of prominence like Mr. Rhodes, whose eagle eye is ever open in its watch for men of enterprise and ability. Mr. Griffith had been gradually winning favourable notice for his adventurous exploits, which drove him into the secret haunts of marauding foes far beyond the ken of civilisation.
Acts of bravery proved him a bulwark of stout unyielding stanchions. Mr. Rhodes knew his worth, and appointed him the leader of an expedition sent out to prospect and report. This pioneering band of explorers plunged into the great dark, then unknown, territory of Southern Central Africa to open it up to the clear daylight of civilisation. The commander's orders were obeyed, and over trackless wastes, through treacherous thickets and ravines, from which might spring the poisoned darts of lurking ambuscades, the men pushed their way amid fatiguing toils and labours. The records of their brilliant achievements shall never be effaced. To-day Britain possesses Mashonoland, Matabeland, and a stretch of country northwards to the Zambesi, for which wealthy, extensive territory she must actually, gratefully, and graciously thank the heroic courage of Mr. Griffith and his gallant comrades. Their pains and cruel sufferings were engulfed in the glories of their exploits. Feats like these cannot often illumine the pages even of a world's history.
On his return from his great expedition he did not repose on the laurels of his success, but, after taking a brief respite, once more proceeded into the interior in charge of the De Beer Mining Company Expedition. This extensive prospecting tour was one of incalculable success. Several wealthy areas were pegged out as highly auriferous, and time alone, that great anticipatory truth-revealer, confirmed the verdict as to their productivity. Now the wealth of the De Beer's mines is
