GRIFFITHS, EZER (1888 - 1962), physicist

Born 28 November 1888 at Aberdare, Glamorganshire, one of the nine children and the eldest of the six sons of Abraham Lincoln and Anne Griffiths. He was educated at Aberdare Intermediate School and the University College of South Wales, Cardiff, where he obtained first-class honours in physics, won a research scholarship and was awarded, later, a Fellowship of the University of Wales and a D.Sc. of that University. In 1915, Griffiths joined the National Physical Laboratory at Teddington where, for the rest of his working life, he studied problems relating to heat. He became a leading authority on heat insulation, evaporation and related matters and his work was of great value to industry. He was a member of the team sent to Australia in 1923 to study the problems involved in transporting apples through the heat of the tropical zones to Britain. Seven years later he went to New Zealand to examine the problems involved in exporting lamb meat to Britain. He was also involved in studying problems linked to vapour trails made by aeroplanes, and he carried out research into the best method of adapting tanks for service in the heat of the Libyan desert during World War II. With R.W. Powell, he was awarded the Moulton Medal for their work on the evaporation of water from surfaces. He was elected F.R.S. in 1926 and appointed O.B.E. in 1950. He retired as the senior Chief Scientific Officer of the physics section of the National Physical Laboratory in 1953.

Griffiths never married and he died at Teddington on 14 February 1962. Among his publications are Methods of measuring temperature (1918; 2nd ed., 1925; 3rd ed., 1947); Pyrometers (1926); Refrigeration principles and practice (1951), and many scientific papers in his field.

His brothers included Edgar A. Griffiths, a physicist with the South African government, Jenkin Arthur Griffiths, the editor of the Colliery Guardian, and Roosevelt Griffiths, a lecturer in metallurgy at the University College, Swansea.

Author

• Evan David Jones, (1903 - 1987)

Sources

• Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 8
• Who's who in Wales, (1937)
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 1961-70, 459-60

Further Reading

• Aberdare Boys Grammar School: Ezer Griffiths, OBE, DSc, FRS
• Wikipedia Article: Ezer Griffiths

Additional Links

• VIAF: 111744445
• Wikidata: Q5423242

Published date: 2001

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