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He was a civil engineer according to wikipedia, as well as being a Senator in the Irish Free State Seanad. ETA: I belatedly note that this was actually mentioned on the NLI photo page: "front facing portrait of Sir John Purser Griffith (1848-1938), Irish civil engineer and member of Seanad Éirean".

He was a pioneer of turf burning power stations before Bord Na Mona existed.

He was married to Sarah Purser, an artist who founded An Túr Gloine, an influential stained glass studio.

Niall McAuley According to Turtle Bunbury, he married Nina Purser, Sarah Purser's cousin.

There is a lot on the interweb about this interesting character. This is good for extra details - www.turtlebunbury.com/published/published_books/docklands... The story of Rathmines Castle where he lived (his older wife inherited it from her family - hence the Purser name) - davidhicksbook.blogspot.com/2015/01/rathmines-castle-rath... 1919 idea for a new harbour on Galway Bay - trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/159311909 He was knighted in 1911; does this imply the photo is after then, or does the "Griffith" in pencil (see notes on the catalogue record) rather than 'Sir John Griffith' imply before 1911 ??

Field Marshal Herbert Charles Onslow Plumer, 1st Viscount Plumer, GCB GCMG GCVO GBE (13 March 1857 – 16 July 1932) was a senior British Army officer of the First World War. After commanding V Corps at the Second Battle of Ypres in April 1915, he took command of the Second Army in May 1915 and in June 1917 won an overwhelming victory over the German Army at the Battle of Messines, which started with the simultaneous explosion of a series of mines placed by the Royal Engineers' tunnelling companies beneath German lines, which created 19 large craters and was described as the loudest explosion in human history. He later served as Commander-in-Chief of the British Army of the Rhine and then as Governor of Malta before becoming High Commissioner of the British Mandate for Palestine in 1925 and retiring in 1928. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Plumer,_1st_Viscount_Plumer

Richard Norton: Thank you for the additional details for about Herbert Plumer and his service in World War I. We have later photos of Plumer (as High Commissioner for the British Mandate in Palestine) in the Matson Photograph Collection. For example: www.loc.gov/pictures/item/mpc2004007194/PP/

the 1925 date on the negative may be for a re-use, as he doesn't look 68 in this photo.

Hi, I'm an admin for a group called British Army, and we'd love to have this added to the group!