Born at Merthyr in 1865, he studied medicine at Bristol University, where he gained the Martyn memorial scholarship in pathology in 1888 and the Sanders scholarship in 1889, and at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London. He qualified in 1889 and then held house appointments at the Bristol General Hospital, and from 1890 to 1893 he was medical tutor in the Bristol Medical School. After taking the FRCS in 1893 he was appointed resident medical officer at the Swansea General and Eye Hospital. In 1894 Griffiths moved to Cardiff and became assistant surgeon to the Kind Edward VII Hospital, later renamed the Royal Infirmary, and surgeon and honorary secretary of the Cardiff Branch of the Surgical Aid Society. Later he became consulting surgeon to the Porth and Maesteg cottage hospitals. During the first world war he worked as a surgeon at the 3rd Western General Hospital, with the rank of Major RAMC, and after the war he became surgeon to the Cardiff Royal Infirmary. He was a member of the British Medical Association for sixty-five years, and a Justice of the Peace for Cardiff for over thirty years. Griffiths was a neat, precise operator and he taught surgery for over 40 years. He was a gentle courteous man whom students respected and affectionately named "Corny". Much of his operating was performed under primitive circumstances in lonely farmhouses and in the poor homes of coal mining areas. In his retirement he enjoyed fishing in the Usk. He was slightly built and in later life slightly stooping. With his slow, deliberate tread, smoking a cigar, he was often seen walking round Cardiff almost until he died at the age of 90 on 7 May 1955. Publication: Traumatic and arterio-venous aneurysm. *Brit J Surg* 1915.