Sir John Norton-Griffiths, 1st Baronet

Lieutenant-Colonel Sir John Norton-Griffiths, 1st Baronet, (13 July 1871 – 27 September 1930) was an engineer, British Army officer during the Second Boer War and the First World War, and a Member of Parliament. A colourful figure in his day, known as "Empire Jack" or "Hellfire Jack", he was also the grandfather of Jeremy Thorpe, a leading British politician. Early life John Norton-Griffiths was born John Griffiths in Somerset on 13 July 1871. He was the son of John Griffiths (1825-1891), a building contractor initially of Brecon, Wales (later of London), at the time of his son's birth clerk of works at St Audries Manor Estate, West Quantoxhead. He had an unsettled youth and left home at the age of 17. After a generally wasted education he spent a year, in 1887–1888, as a trooper with the Life Guards. before travelling to the colony of Natal and shortly on to Transvaal, where he worked as a 'sub-manager' at a gold mine at the age of 17. Military career in Africa In 1896 on the outbreak of the Second Matabele War he joined Lieut.-Colonel Edwin Alderson's Mashonaland Field Force, then in 1897 was commissioned into the British South Africa Police. In the Second Boer War, he served briefly with Brabant's Horse, then as Captain Adjutant to Lord Roberts' bodyguard.