[4] In 1896 on the outbreak of the Second Matabele War he joined Lieut.-Colonel Edwin Alderson's Mashonaland Field Force, then in 1897 was commissioned into the British South Africa Police.

[4][2]: 1–2  In the Second Boer War, he served briefly with Brabant's Horse, then as Captain Adjutant to Lord Roberts' bodyguard.

[3] Norton-Griffiths was awarded contracts to carry out major engineering projects in Africa and South America.

In 1914 at the start of the First World War, Norton-Griffiths raised the 2nd King Edward's Horse at his own expense and was commissioned major in the regiment.

[9] Using the experience from a successful engineering career, Norton-Griffiths built many fortifications for the Entente on the Western Front.

An enigmatic figure, Norton-Griffiths took to touring the trenches in a battered Rolls-Royce loaded with crates of fine wines.

Lord Kitchener contacted Norton-Griffiths on 12 February 1915, and by the end of the month eighteen "Manchester Moles" sewer men were in France as founding members of 170 (Tunnelling) Company, Royal Engineers.

Whether the mission succeeded may be judged by the fact that within six months all of the wells that had been destroyed were in working order and large supplies of oil and grain dispatched to Germany and Austria.

Norton-Griffiths appears as a character in the 2021 British film, The War Below, which is a fictionalised account of the tunnelling operations prior to the Battle of Messines.