William Charles Easton Griffith
William Charles Easton Griffith (1854-1893)
WILLIAM CHARLES EASTON GRIFFITH, eldest son of the Rev. C. H. Griffith, Rector of Strathfield Turgiss, Winchfield, Hants, was born on the 24th of June, 1854.
He commenced his engineering career in 1870, when he was articled for a period of five years to the firm of Easton, Amos and Anderson, in whose shops and drawing-office he displayed considerable mechanical ability which stood him in good stead subsequently. Shortly after his apprenticeship he was sent as Resident Engineer in charge of the erection of pumping-machinery in the Whittlesea Mere district of Cambridgeshire. At several stations the old windmill and scoop-wheel were being replaced by the steam engine and centrifugal pump, and at Whittlesea Mere, consequent upon the general subsidence due to the effects of drainage, the original engine and centrifugal pump - the first used in the Fen District - were substituted by an engine of greater power and by a pump of a capacity adapted to work under a higher lift.
On the completion of this work Mr. Griffith was sent in 1857 to Baku on the Caspian Sea, where the oil industry was then being opened up, to take charge of the laying of two pipe-lines for the transport of petroleum from the oil springs to the seaboard.....[more]