Percy Walter Griffin
Percy Walter Griffin (c1883-1941)
1942 Obituary [1]
PERCY WALTER GRIFFIN had an extensive experience in the design, manufacture, and operation of combustion appliances of all types for coal, oil, and gas fuels. He served his apprenticeship from 1900 to 1905 in the workshops of Simplex Company, Ltd., and as an articled pupil with Messrs. T. Bernard Hall and Jones, consulting engineers, of Birmingham. From 1905 to 1911 he was technical assistant to Mr. J. W. Hall, M.I.Mech.E., and during that period he was chiefly engaged on factory power schemes, rolling mills, and steelworks plant.
He then went into business on his own account as engineers' merchant until 1914, in which year he was appointed shops manager and maintenance engineer at the Royal Small Arms Factory, Enfield Lock, where he took charge of the engineering department and the forging shops, foundry, and fitting shops. He held this position until 1920, and later became chief engineer to the Powdered Fuel Plant Company, Ltd., Westminster, with whom he remained from 1920 until 1922 when he accepted an appointment as manager of the newly formed Pulverized Fuel Department of Messrs. Vickers, Ltd., Barrow in Furness.
He was responsible for initiating and organizing the work of that department, and he also designed and supervised the construction of improved pulverized coal plants of his own invention, known as the "Vickers-Griffin" plant. In 1924, he became managing director of the Atomized Fuel and Engineering Company, Ltd., of Victoria Street, Westminster, and after holding that appointment for four years, he was appointed engineer and manager to a firm producing combustion appliances. He subsequently held the position of manager to Messrs. Prior Burners, Ltd., from 1932 until 1934, and for the three following years he practiced on his own account as a consulting engineer. After holding the appointment of engineer to Messrs. Christmas and Walters, Ltd., makers of gas producers for steelworks plant, he proceeded in 1938 to his final appointment at Enfield, where he occupied the same position which he held during the war of 1914-18. He was later transferred to the Poole Royal Small Arms Factory as manager of services, holding this position until his death.
Mr. Griffin, whose death in his fifty-eighth year occurred on 14th June 1941, was elected an Associate Member of the Institution in 1920 and was transferred to Membership in 1927.