Lieutenant Colonel Sir John NORTON-GRIFFITHS
(1871-1930)

Born on 13 July 1871, John Norton Griffiths was to become a flamboyant and somewhat extrovert entrepreneur but, unlike many others who have these characteristics, he was well-liked, listened to and usually successful.

At the age of 17 he went to Australia on a windjammer and was employed for some years in engineering, excavating and tunnelling in remote areas. He then moved on to South Africa where he practised as an engineer and took part in the Matabele War (1896-1897) and the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902).

On the return of peace, he built up a business as an engineering contractor, constructing the first section of the Benguela railway in Portuguese West Africa (now Angola), about 100 miles in length. He also carried out works in America and founded his own firm of public works contractors in England.

He was a Conservative Member of Parliament from 1910 to 1924 and was a staunch advocate of "Imperial" projects and ideas. He was known in the House of Commons as Empire Jack.

At the outbreak of war in 1914, Norton Griffiths, at his own expense, organised and equipped the second regiment of King Edwards Horse, comprised mainly of men from the British Colonies who wanted to serve in Europe.

Towards the end of 1914 his firm was working on a tunnelled drainage contract in Manchester where the men driving the tunnels were using a method known as "clay kicking". This was a technique used for small diameter tunnels where the men doing the digging sat with their backs supported by a wooden backrest and with their feet pointing towards the face. With a spade-like tool they dug out the clay ahead and passed the spoil over their heads to one of their mates for disposal at the rear of the tunnel.

In early December it occurred to Norton Griffiths that this tunnelling technique might have something to contribute to the war. He wrote to the War Office suggesting that he be allowed to take a group of his "moles" to France where the soil was right and where they could quickly undermine enemy positions.

By coincidence, however, on 15 December 1914 the Germans gave new importance to mining by making the first underground attack of the war, with devastating results. Numerous attempts were being made by front-line units to evolve listening devices and to initiate some counter-tunnelling activities, but these were not properly co-ordinated and, in the main, were not very successful.

However, following more successful German attacks with tunnelled mines, Norton Griffith's letter finally saw the light of day and on 12 February 1915 he received a telegram instructing him to report to the War Office. He went immediately and was shown into the private office of Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War.

He was shown recent communications from Sir John French describing the seriousness of the situation due to mining and then asked for his advice. His response was to take a fire shovel from the grate, sit on the floor and give a demonstration of "clay kicking".

Kitchener was impressed and demanded the immediate recruitment of substantial numbers of "moles", far more than would have been readily available in the country. But Norton Griffiths was asked to go to France, that day, in order to examine the ground conditions to ensure that his technique would be feasible.

Next day, 13 February, he arrived at the office of the Engineer-in-Chief (E-in-C) at GHQ in St.Omer where he was well received and he established an immediate rapport with those he had come to see. He repeated his demonstration, explaining that the tunnels could be used for attack, for spying or for intercepting German tunnels coming in the opposite direction.

Brigadier (later Lieutenant General Sir) George Fowke, the E-in-C, was initially sceptical but after the demonstration became a little less negative. He instructed his assistant, Colonel Harvey, to take Norton Griffiths, plus the two employees he had brought with him, to Army and Corps headquarters the next day, 14 February, to see what their engineers thought of the idea.

They actually visited four headquarters, Army, Corps, Division and Brigade and at each stopping point Norton Griffiths repeated his demonstration. Finally, they got to the front line, a mile from the point where the first German mine assault had taken place in the previous December.

The soil conditions were good and on their way back to St.Omer they reported to each of the headquarters they had visited on the way out. Further meetings followed at GHQ on the following day and Norton Griffiths was sent for by Sir John French, the C-in-C, for a personal explanation.

Brigadier Fowke now needed little convincing and agreed to give the strange proposal a trial. The structuring of this new venture was discussed in detail, formal permission was requested from and granted by the War Office and Norton Griffiths returned to England to start assembling his first units of "clay kickers" - soon to be known as Tunnelling Companies. He had wanted these units to be called Moles, but this was over-ruled. However, many of these companies retained the mole as their unit sign.

By 17 February Norton Griffiths was back in London where he was granted an immediate interview by Lord Kitchener, to whom he reported on his visits in France and on the reactions of the engineer and infantry officers to his suggestions.

His proposals to recruit large numbers of civilian tunnellers and to throw them into the "deep end" without any form of military training was not well received by many officers but, as so often, his persuasive manner won the day and he was given the go-ahead to start forming the first tunnelling companies.

War Office approval was given on 19 February for the first nine of these companies. On the previous day, however, Norton Griffiths had been to Liverpool, closed a tunnelling contract there and taken 18 of his "redundant" employees to Chatham to be enrolled, clothed and made into Royal Engineers.

The first nine Royal Engineer Tunnelling Companies, numbers 170 to 178, each commanded by a regular R.E. officer, comprised 5 officers and 269 sappers, aided by temporarily attached infantrymen as required. Norton Griffiths, in the rank of major, acted as liaison officer between these units and the E-in-C's office in St.Omer.

Anticipating much travelling in France and Flanders, he decided to be comfortable and persuaded the War Office to purchase the Rolls Royce currently registered in his wife's name.

The new recruits in these units, aged anything up to 60, did not readily conform to military discipline and Norton Griffiths' skills as a politician and an engineer were called on to the full in recruiting the men he needed and integrating them into a military environment.

Recruiting continued at a frenetic pace, with Norton Griffiths constantly giving the impression of being in several places at the same time. His judging of people was remarkably accurate and he very rarely made a mistake in selecting men for a commission.

As the Tunnelling Companies developed, many ex-miners already serving transferred from their units and by the end of 1916 there were more 30 companies involved in this massive exercise.

By August 1915, Norton Griffiths had produced a rough plan for extensive deep-level mining on the Messines front. These were refined and formed the framework on which mines used at the battle of Messines nearly two years later were based. He was awarded the DSO, was mentioned in dispatches three times and promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in 1916.

The significant successes of these Tunnelling Companies led to mining being made a separate branch of the E-in-C's office and to the appointment of an Inspector of Mines at GHQ. This, in effect, made Norton Griffiths redundant and after collecting staff for the new Inspector, he returned to England in April 1916, ostensibly to resume his parliamentary duties.

But he did not stay there for long. Later that year he was sent on a special mission to Rumania with a brief to prevent the oil and grain resources there from falling into the hands of the Austro-German troops. This was achieved with his usual thoroughness and in 1917 he was created a KCB. In the same year he changed his surname by deed poll to Norton-Griffiths and was created a baronet in 1922. He left the House of Commons in 1924.

In 1929, the Egyptian government decided to raise the height of the Aswan dam and the contract was awarded to Norton-Griffiths & Co. Disputes arose in the following year, with the company alleging that the engineering inspectors were inexperienced and incompetent to whom the government responded that progress was too slow and suggesting that the contractor was in need of financial assistance. Work ground to a halt on 21st September 1930.

However, on 27th September Norton Griffiths, by now aged 59, was found dead in a small boat a short distance from the shore near Alexandria. It appeared that he had committed suicide.

Thus ended the life of a truly remarkable man who, by his personal characteristics, his skills and his determination to succeed, had made a dramatic contribution to the successful outcome of the 1914-1918 war.