▶Date of birth:  1826        Place of birth: Llandyssil, Cardiganshire

▶Father:  Samuel Griffith      Mother: Esther James

▶Spouse(s):  Eliza Filliter   Date(s) of marriage:  23 June 1864     Place(s) of marriage: Swanage, Dorset

▶Occupation: Clergyman (Unitarian minister); Author

▶Lifestory: David Griffith was a Unitarian minister who preached and lectured widely on religious, literary, and other subjects, and proselytised for education in Mechanics’ Institutes and Sunday schools. He was born in Llandyssil, Cardiganshire, in 1826, the sixth son of dissenting minister the Revd. Samuel Griffith and his wife Esther (née James). Griffith became a Unitarian, training at the Presbyterian College in Carmarthen, and he ministered first at Onen Far, Llandilo, in Carmarthenshire 1843-9, where in 1849 he delivered a lecture entitled “History and Analysis of the English Language” at the Llandilo Mechanics’ Institute, before moving to Aberdeen 1849-53, Wareham, Dorset 1854-8, (where he delivered his lecture on the English language at the Poole Mechanics’ Institute in 1855), and then Tavistock 1858-66, where he officiated at the Abbey Chapel in the town; in 1858 he delivered a lecture of Schiller’s William Tell and the Helvetic Confederacy to the Wimborne Institution. In 1864 he married Eliza, second daughter of George Filliter Esq., of Trigon Hill, Tavistock.

As well as ministering to his congregation, Griffith continued to be committed to education, and maintained his religious and historical talks; he was involved with the Tavistock Mechanics’ Literary Institute and Sunday-schooling. His lecture Christ the sole master of the Christian” was published in 1865 for the Western Unitarian Christian Union.

Griffith left Tavistock in 1866 after eight years to continue his ministry in Cheltenham, principally at the Bayshill Unitarian Chapel, but still lecturing and preaching regularly elsewhere in the region. His most important contribution was Continuity of religious development, consisting of sermons dedicated to his Tavistock congregation but published when he was in Cheltenham in 1867. Between 1867 and 1869 he lived at 2 Saxham Villas (now 110 Evesham Road), where his rent was £75 a year. By 1871 he and his wife Eliza had moved to Glan Teivi Lodge, 9 Montpelier Grove in Cheltenham; she was an important south-western supporter of suffragism.

He remained there in Cheltenham for the rest of his life, but he died while at St Leonards-on-Sea in Sussex in 1878, at the age of fifty-two. His estate at probate was valued at under £3,000.

▶Moved to Pittville from:  Tavistock      Moved from Pittville to: Elsewhere in Cheltenham

▶Date of death:   13 July 1878     Place of death:  St Leonard’s on Sea, Sussex

▶Date of burial:         Place of burial:

▶Notes:  Thomas Rowland Roberts, Eminent Welshmen (1908)       ID: 4038

Contributor(s):  John Simpson