Early Life
Griffith was born in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, the younger son of the Rev. Edward Griffith, a Congregational minister and his wife, Mary, second daughter of Peter Walker. Although of Welsh extraction, his forebears for at least three generations had lived in England. The family migrated to Queensland when Samuel was eight. He was educated at schools in Ipswich, Sydney, Maitland and Brisbane (from 1860), towns where his father was a minister, then at the University of Sydney, where he graduated B.A. in 1863 with first-class honours in classics, mathematics and natural science. During his course he was awarded the Cooper and Barker scholarships and other prizes. On his return to Brisbane he studied law and was articled to Arthur Macalister, in one of whose ministries Griffith afterwards had his first portfolio. In 1865 he gained the T. S. Mort Travelling Fellowship. Travelling to Europe he spent some of his time in Italy, and became much attached to the Italian people and their literature. Many years after he was to become the first Australian translator of Dante (The Inferno of Dante Alighieri in 1908). Griffith then studied law in Brisbane, where he was called to the bar in 1867. In 1870 Griffith returned to Sydney to complete an M.A.. In the same year he married Julia Janet Thomson
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