Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/187

This page needs to be proofread.
Griffin
167
Griffin

a strong advocate of the parliamentary enfranchisement of women, She was a member of the central society of the women's suffrage movement. In 1877 she wrote the pamphlet 'The Physical Force Objection to Woman's Suffrage.'

For the last fifteen years of her life Mrs. Grey was an invalid, but she maintained to the end her interest in women's education and progress. She died on 19 Sept. 1906 at 41 Stanhope Gardens, Kensington.

Many of her speeches were published as pamphlets. Besides the books in which she collaborated with Miss Shirreff, she published in 1858 a novel, 'Love's Sacrifice'; in 1887 a translation of Rosmini Serbati's 'The Ruling Principle of Method applied to Education'; and in 1889 'Last Words to Girls on Life in School and after School.'

[The Times, 21 and 24 Sept. 1906; Journal of Education, Oct. 1906; Burke's Peerage; cf. Hare's Story of My Life, vol. iv.; private information.]

E. L.


GRIFFIN, Sir LEPEL HENRY (1838–1908), Anglo-Indian administrator, born at Watford, Hertfordshire, where his father was serving as locum tenens, on 20 July 1838, was only son of the three children of Henry Griffin, incumbent of Stoke-by-Clare, Suffolk, by his wife Frances Sophia, who had a family of four sons and six daughters by a first husband, Mr. Welsh.

Griffin was educated at Maiden's preparatory school, Brighton, and then at Harrow, which he soon left, on account of illness. After tuition by Mr. Whitehead of Chatham House, Ramsgate, he passed the Indian civil service examination in 1859, and was posted to the Punjab as an assistant commissioner on 17 Nov. 1860. 'His conversational powers and ready wit made him popular in society ; but he soon proved himself in addition an effective writer, a fluent speaker, and, despite a somewhat easy-going manner, a man of untiring industry' (Journ. East India Assoc. April 1908). He is the original of the brilliant civilian portrayed in Sir Henry Cunningham's novel 'Chronicles of Dustypore' (1875), and was credited with the authorship of Aberigh Mackey's 'Twenty-one Days in India' (1880), satiric sketches of Anglo-Indian life, which first appeared anonymously in 'Vanity Fair' (1878-9). Sir Robert Montgomery [q. v.], lieutenant-governor of the Punjab, turned Griffin's literary abilities to good purpose by selecting him to prepare historical accounts of the principal Punjab families and of the rulers of the native principalities. The work, which involved immense research, was based both on official documents and on records and information gathered from the chiefs and nobles themselves. His 'Punjab Chiefs,' historical and biographical notices of the principal families of the Punjab (Lahore, 1865); 'The Law of Inheritance to Sikh Chiefships previous to the Annexation' (Lahore, 1869) ; and 'The Rajas of the Punjab' (Lahore, 1870; 2nd edit. London, 1873), at once took rank as standard works.

Griffin served as under-secretary to the local government from April 1870 ; officiating secretary from March 1871 ; on special duty to frame track rules between the Punjab and Rajputana from February 1873; and as superintendent of the Kapurthala state from April 1875. He was on special duty at the Paris Exhibition of 1878, and was appointed permanent chief secretary of the Punjab in November of that year. His official minutes, rapidly dictated to shorthand writers, were models of style.

Griffin's great opportunity came in the later phases of the Afghan war. 'After lengthened consideration,' wrote Lord Lytton semi-officially in Feb. 1880, 'I have come to the conclusion that there is only one man in India who is in all respects completely qualified by personal ability, special official experience, intellectual quickness and tact, general commonsense and literary skill, to do for the government of India what I want done as quickly as possible at Kabul, and that man in Mr. Lepel Griffin.' Accordingly in March 1880 the viceroy furnished Griffin with an elaborate minute on the policy to be adopted in Afghanistan, and gave him superintendence of negotiations at Kabul, in subordination only to the military commander, Sir Frederick (now Earl) Roberts. Griffin reached Kabul on 20 March, and at once entered into communication with Abdur Rahman, who had returned to the country after ten years' exile in Russian territory, and was beginning to establish himself in Afghan Turkestan. Griffin by his masterly tact overcame Abdur Rahman's suspicions of English policy and finally, in circumstances which seemed most unpromising, helped to establish him on the Afghan throne and to inspire him permanently with a friendly feeling for England.

Before Griffin's labour was completed Lytton resigned; but the new viceroy, Lord Ripon [q. v. Suppl. II], offered Griffin sympathetic support. At a durbar at Kabul on 22 July the wishes and intentions of the government were explained to the Afghans by Griffin in a Persian speech, and Abdur Rahman was