Griffith went on two of the earliest overseas tours, the first involved travelling on the SS Great Britain[2] with HH Stephenson to Australia in 1861/2 and the second with Edgar Willsher to North America in 1868.
[3] During this tour, which was a tremendous all-round success for him, Griffith and his team-mates pitched their tent at Beechworth, where they were to take on a local XXII over the course of three days.
After the chief clash at Castlemain, which the Englishmen lost, Griffith, Lawrence and Iddison recovered some of their dented pride by beating eleven of the locals in another single-wicket match.
Edward Eardley-Wilmot and EC Streatfield recalled in their book, Charterhouse: Old and New: "Ben Griffiths, with his shoulders high up in his head, hitting merrily left-handedly all over the field".
The following line of verse also describes him in romantic terms: Harry Altham, in his celebrated book, A History of Cricket, noted that "not without cause has the poet sung ... for by common consent he was the hardest hitter known until the time of CI Thornton.
"[6] James Pycroft confirms this: "Griffiths among the professionals and Mr. Thornton among the gentlemen are the two hardest hitters of my time; I mean in their usual style of play.
"[7] W. J. Ford wrote more than once of a vast hit of Griffith's which sailed clean out of The Oval, over the heads of the many Surrey boundary-riders and then over the pavilion.
"[9] Griffith also once hit all four balls (although Ford mistakenly wrote about six) of an over right out of the Hastings ground in 1864, when playing for a United Eleven.