NAM.1994-11-334-1

Lieutenant Arthur Charles Fleming Griffith (1897-1918), Royal Welsh Fusiliers, 1918 (c). Miniature in watercolour on ivory, artist unknown, inscribed upper right with illegible signature and the date ‘19’, 1919. Half-length portrait, in service dress. Presumably painted from a photograph, posthumously. In a glazed, brass frame, set into a suede-lined, brown leather case. The son of the Reverend Charles E T Griffith, Dean of Llandaff and Mrs Margaret B Griffith, Arthur Charles Fleming Griffith was educated at Wellington College where he was a cadet lieutenant in the OTC. He was commissioned into the Royal Welsh Fusiliers on 27 October 1916 and served with the 2nd Bn in France from December that year. Promoted lieutenant in April 1918, Griffith was attached to the 17th Bn Royal Welsh Fusiliers when he was killed in action on 8 October 1918 at the age of 21. His Wellington College Year Book obituary quotes the Colonel of his regiment, ‘You will be proud to know that your son died most gallantly, when leading his company to the attack, and at the head of his men. I saw and spoke to him only a few minutes before, and he was so cheerful and full of confidence. The attack which he led was completely successful. He was shot through the head and was killed instantaneously, and so was spared all sufferings. A braver, finer lad never died for his country, and you have every right to be proud of him. We have lost a dear friend and as gallant a young officer as I have ever known. There is not a man in the battalion who does not mourn his loss’.

World War One, Western Front (1914-1918)