John Willis Griffiths was an American naval architect who created the first extreme clipper ship, the Rainbow, which was designed to engage in the China trade. The Rainbow was launched in 1845 and began a new era in shipbuilding.
Background
John Willis Griffiths was born on October 6, 1809 in New York City. His father was probably John Griffiths, shipwright in an East River yard. Though the younger Griffiths became one of America’s outstanding naval architects, the details of his family and early life remain surprisingly obscure.
Education
After a public-school education, he received a thorough training in ship carpentry under his father’s direction.
Career
His special talents soon made him a draftsman; he served for a while, apparently, at the Portsmouth, Virginia, Navy Yard and then with Smith & Dimon, prominent New York shipwrights. He first attracted attention in 1836 by a series of original articles on naval architecture in the Portsmouth Advocate, and five years later, exhibited at the American Institute in New York the model of a clipper ship embodying some of his novel theories.
Early in the forties he delivered before the shipbuilders of New York and other audiences the first formal lecture on naval architecture given in America. This lecture was later expanded into A Treatise on Marine and Naval Architecture or Theory and Practice Blended in Ship-building, which passed through several editions in England and America and was even translated into Dutch. It was closely followed by The Ship-builder’s Manual and Nautical Referee. His final book was The Progressive Shipbuilder. He was editor of the American Ship from October 1878 until his death. Through his writings Griffiths did more than any one else to put shipbuilding in America on a scientific basis, in place of the “rule of thumb” methods then in vogue.
Most of his contemporaries, like Donald McKay, Samuel Hall, and Jacob Bell, owned shipyards and actually built the ships they designed, just as at that time the architect of a house was generally also the builder. Griffiths, however, with his particular inventive genius and bold originality, was content to draw the plans and let others execute them.
Though the Ann McKim, built at Baltimore in 1832, is often called the pioneer clipper, Griffiths is credited with designing the first “extreme clipper ship, ” the Rainbow, 750 tons, launched in 1845 for the China trade.
He also designed the Sea Witch, 907 tons, launched a year later. To secure increased speed by reducing resistance, he gave these ships slender bows and sterns rising high above the water, concave bow waterlines and “the greatest breadth at a point considerably further aft than had hitherto been considered practicable”.
Conservative skeptics attacked these innovations, questioning the safety of such sharp, slender ships, but they proved to be the fastest afloat and strongly influenced the subsequent development of the American clipper. Griffiths then turned to steamships, where again his influence was important.
The first steamships had lines very similar to those of sailing ships, but Griffiths exhibited at the Crystal Palace exposition in London a model with a straight bow and other features later generally adopted. These features were incorporated in the Arctic, Baltic, and Pacific which he is said to have designed for the ill-starred line of Edward K. Collins. During the early fifties, these were the fastest and finest steamships in the world. Griffiths later attempted to cut the transatlantic passage to seven and even to six days.
He is said also to have become a special naval constructor in 1858 and as such to have designed the Pawnee, a twin screw vessel of remarkably light draft in spite of its heavy armament.
In addition to designing complete ships, he also developed several important special features including iron keelsons, watertight bulkheads, bilge keels, and triple screws. He developed an improved form of rivet, invented a machine for bending timber to the crooked forms necessary for shipbuilding and designed the New Era, 1, 140 tons, the first ship built with mechanically bent timbers (1870). One of his last experiments is said to have been a lifeboat steamer, in 1875. During his later years, he was active in the endeavor to revive the declining American merchant marine and was a conservative in his arguments for the use of wood instead of iron in American ships.
He died at his home in Brooklyn after a protracted illness.
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
Chapelle wrote, “Strongly opinionated, and contentious, he [Griffiths] was nevertheless an important contributor to the development of American naval architecture. ”
Melbourne Smith wrote, “John Willis Griffiths was considered a genius as a naval architect, although perhaps somewhat eccentric in his zeal to improve American naval architecture. ”