He was born in Clifton, Bristol, to John Devonald Griffith and his wife Alice.
He then studied at Cambridge University graduating MA.
He taught Medical Physics at Aberdeen University from 1923 to 1964.
In 1954 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
His proposers were Alexander Geddes, Charles Strachan, Edward Maitland Wright, and Vero Wynne-Edwards.