Sculptor, and carver in wood and stone, born in Bebington, Cheshire, one of the sons of Edward Griffith (b. c.1811), a mason. By the time of the 1861 census, he had become a stone carver, staying in lodgings in Birkenhead (his fellow lodger was Benjamin Profitt, a stone mason). By 1871 Griffith was married and living in Newton, a suburb of Chester, and describing himself as a carver in stone and wood. In the middle of that decade he was employed by Farmer & Brindley to carve a pair of corbels (which had been designed by the sculptor Robert Bridgeman) as part of the architect, George Gilbert Scott’s, restoration of the exterior of Chester Cathedral’s south transept. Known as the ‘Political Corbels’, they feature portrait heads of W.E. Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli, successive prime minsters at the time of the commission (1874–76). In 1889, Griffith tried to claim credit for the design of the corbels and it is perhaps significant that during this period he was making what was to be a brief venture into the production of original sculpture, describing himself as a sculptor for the first and only time in the following census of 1891. According to Edward Morris (2012, p. 57), in 1882 Griffith had designed the terracotta statue of Queen Victoria, manufactured by H.R. Bowers of Ruabon for E.A. Ould’s rebuilding of the Queen’s School, Chester. In 1883 he entered two competitions at the Art Exhibition of the Royal National Eisteddfod, submitting three carved, ebonized panels for a sideboard in the ‘Best Wood Carving’ section and a bust in the ‘Portrait Bust of a Welsh Worthy’ section; in neither field was he successful. He may be the E. Griffith who in 1884 contributed a bust of William Rees to the 14th Liverpool Autumn Exhibition and also the E. Griffiths who in 1887 contributed two plaster busts – of an unnamed lady and of Alexander Balfour – and two plaster statuettes – of Lewis Edwards and of Sir Hugh Owen to the 17th Exhibition. The evidence suggests that he failed to make a living from his own sculptures, for by the turn of the century he was working an itinerant carver: staying in lodgings in Handsworth, Staffordshire, at the time of the 1901 census and Eastbourne, Sussex, in 1911. With him in these lodgings, and working as his assistant, was one of his sons, John Henry Griffith (c.1874–?). Two other sons had become independent sculptors, the short-lived Frederick Charles Griffith (1870–1917) and the most successful of the family, Edward Owen Griffith (1868–1931). Edward Griffith died in Liverpool on 11 February 1919.
Note: There is an element of inconsistency in the spelling of the present sculptor’s surname. In all of the England censuses bar one the spelling used is Griffith; in 1871 it is spelt Griffiths. Morris and Roberts (2012) render the surname Griffiths for the gazetteer entries (pp. 58, 83), presumably following the spelling found in contemporary sources, while prioritising Griffith in their biographies section (p. 270).
Ancestry website sources: England censuses for 1841, 1861, 1871, 1881, 1891, 1901, 1911; National Probate Calendar for 1919.
Bibliography: Chester and Liverpool Trade and Street Directories; Mapping Sculpture; E. Morris and E. Roberts, Public Sculpture of Cheshire and Merseyside, Liverpool, 2012, pp. 57, 83, 270.
Terry Cavanagh, October 2025