Sir John Norton - Griffiths , 1st Baronet Lieutenant - Colonel Sir John Norton - Griffiths , 1st Baronet KCB DSO ( 13 July 1871 – 27 September 1930 ) was an engineer , soldier during the Second Boer War and World War I , and later a British Member of Parliament . Early life . John Norton - Griffiths was born in Somerset on 13 July 1871 . The son of John Griffiths , a clerk of works at St Audries Manor Estate , West Quantoxhead . He had an unsettled youth and left home at the age of 17 . After a generally wasted education he spent a year , in 1887 - 1888 , as a trooper with the Life Guards . Military career in Africa . On the outbreak of the Second Matabele War in 1896 he immediately enlisted in the in British South Africa Police and , presumably on the strength of his year with the Life Guards , he was given the rank of sergeant and command of a troop of scouts . He served in the Second Boer War , rising to Captain Adjutant to Lord Roberts ' bodyguard . Marriage and family . In 1901 , Norton - Griffiths married Gwladys Wood . Together they had four children : Engineer and MP . After the war , Norton - Griffiths was awarded contracts to carry out major engineering projects in Africa and South America . These included work on the first 197 km of the Benguela Railway in Angola between 1903 and 1908 . He was elected to Parliament in 1910 and was until 1918 the Conservative Party ' s MP for Wednesbury , Staffordshire . From 1918 until 1924 he was the Conservative MP for the Wandsworth Central constituency , London . World War I . In 1914 at the start of World War I he raised the 2nd King Edward ' s Horse at his own expense and was commissioned Major in the regiment . 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 . Early mine warfare , started in 1915 by the blowing or ' lifting ' of two tunnels under British trenches , causing psychological turmoil and burying surprised tommies under then weak trenchwork . Norton - Griffiths immediately recruited all ' clay kickers ' from mines in the north of England , using his carte - blanche to cull such skilled men from regular infantry . Forming the first units of the Royal Engineer tunnelling companies resulted in a method to dig tunnels at a rate of 8m per day compared to the Germans ' 2m . This led to a massive campaign in the Ypres salient culminating in the 7 June 1917 3 : 10 am detonation of more than ten tonnes of Ammonal under the German high ground at Hill 60 . The effect resulted in an earthquake that split the ground under the entire hill with white flames shooting into the sky , while the concrete pillboxes and occupying soldiers came down for hundreds of yards in all directions . The explosion resulted in a 70 ft deep crater , with surrounded trenches sandwiched shut so fast soldiers were crushed still in the standing positions . The resulting terror caused the Germans to retreat and the castigation of Tunnelmaster Otto von Fusslein . Following this ' Empire Jack ' was sent elsewhere . Perhaps his most - important contribution came when he was sent to sabotage the Romania n oil fields ahead of a German advance early in the war . Colonel Norton - Griffiths used such techniques as dumping cement down the wells , filling tanks with nails , and emptying storage wells and then setting them on fire . He was able , almost single - handedly , to destroy seventy refineries and 8 , 000 tons of crude oil . General Ludendorff of the German army was later quoted as saying , " We must attribute our shortages to him . " German efforts later got some of the Romanian fields back online for the war effort , but they were never able to recover fully . This difficulty led to the priority of securing Romania as an ally of Adolf Hitler in World War II . He was promoted Lieutenant - Colonel in 1918 ( although he had temporarily also held the rank in 1916 ) . He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in 1916 and made a baronet in 1922 . Sir John was a keen supporter of Liverpool football club and was a director of Arsenal Football Club between 1928 and 1930 . Last years in Egypt . In Egypt in 1928 he became involved in the scheme to heighten the Aswan Dam , at which point his good fortune deserted him and funds ran out . On 27 September 1930 , Sir John donned his bathing costume as he did every morning , and took a rowboat from the beach of the Casino Hotel near Alexandria , Egypt . Sometime later , the boat was found empty , and a search party was launched . They soon retrieved Sir John ' s body , floating in the water , with a bullet wound through the temple . No weapon was found , but the coroner ' s court gave a verdict of suicide , although suggestions of murder ( possibly by Romanians ) also circulated . His body was brought back to England and he was buried at Mickleham Church , Surrey , on 18 October 1930 . He was just over 59 years of age . His widow Gwladys survived him until her death , aged 101 , in 1974 .