Eric Griffith-Jones

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} '''Sir Eric Newton Griffith-Jones''' KBE CMG QC (1 November 1913 – 13 February 1979) was a British lawyer and administrator who served as Attorney General of Kenya between 1955 and 1961.<ref name="auto1">Nicholas J. White, British Business in Post-Colonial Malaysia, 1957-70: Neo-colonialism or Disengagement?, Routledge, 2 Aug 2004</ref>

==Early life==

Griffith-Jones was born in Singapore in 1913 to Oswald Phillips Griffith-Jones and his wife Edith.<ref name="auto2">Wooten & Gibson, 1964, Who's who of Rhodesia, Mauritius, Central and East Africa</ref> His paternal aunt was Anne Griffith-Jones.<ref name="auto2"/> He was educated at Cheltenham College and was called to the bar at Gray's Inn in 1934.<ref name="auto1"/>

==Career==

On completing his studies, he joined the Colonial Legal Service and in 1935 began his career as a solicitor and advocate in Straits Settlements and Johor.<ref name="auto1"/> In 1939 he became Crown Counsel in Singapore. He saw active military service during the Second World War and was a prisoner of war between 1942 and 1945.<ref name="auto1"/> After the war, he resumed his legal career as a Crown Counsel in the Malayan Union.<ref name="auto1"/>

In the early 1950s, he moved to Kenya and was made Queen's Counsel in 1954.<ref>A. & C. Black, 1971, Who was who, Volume 7, p.320</ref> The following year, he was appointed Attorney-General and Minister for Legal Affairs.<ref>Kenya Gazette, 8 Mar 1955, Vol. 57, No. 12</ref> He served as Acting Governor in 1962–63. In 1963 he succeeded Sir John Hay as head of Guthrie and oversaw a restructuring of the group.<ref name="auto1"/> He spent his later years on the board of several companies.<ref name="auto1"/>

==Death==

He died on 13 February 1979, at 65.<ref>Graya: A Magazine for Members of Gray's Inn, Issue 73, Gray's Inn, 1979</ref>

==References== {{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Griffith-Jones, Eric}} Category:1913 births Category:1979 deaths Category:British colonial governors and administrators in Africa Category:British Kenya people Category:Colonial governors and administrators of Kenya Category:People educated at Cheltenham College Category:Colonial Legal Service officers Category:Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire Category:Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George Category:20th-century King's Counsel Category:People from Singapore