Ralph Alan Griffiths is a historian and an
emeritus professor
''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus".
In some c ...
at
Swansea University
Swansea University () is a public university, public research university located in Swansea, Wales, United Kingdom.
It was chartered as University College of Swansea in 1920, as the fourth college of the University of Wales. In 1996, it chang ...
.
Life
Griffiths was born and brought up in a mining valley between Glamorgan and Monmouthshire.
He attended "one of Wales' good grammar schools and was well taught in most subjects".
He is a graduate of the University of Bristol and was appointed to a research post, and then promoted to higher academic positions, at Swansea in 1964.
Griffiths was a member, and later chair, of the
, sat on the Advisory Council on Public Records, and on the Council of the
Royal Historical Society
The Royal Historical Society (RHS), founded in 1868, is a learned society of the United Kingdom which advances scholarly studies of history.
Origins
The society was founded and received its royal charter in 1868. Until 1872 it was known as the H ...
.
In 2001 he delivered the
British Academy
The British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences.
It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the sa ...
's Sir John Rhŷs Memorial Lecture. In 2004, Griffiths was appointed general editor of the ''
Gwent County History
The Gwent County History was a Welsh history project which created an encyclopaedic study of the historic county of Monmouthshire, known as Gwent between 1974 and 1996. The series was published by the University of Wales Press in five volumes be ...
'', published in five volumes between 2004 and 2013. In 2011, he was elected a
Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales
The Learned Society of Wales () is a national academy, learned society and charity that exists to "celebrate, recognise, preserve, protect and encourage excellence in all of the scholarly disciplines", and to serve the Welsh nation.
The Learned ...
. In 2021, he was awarded the
Derek Allen Prize
The Derek Allen Prize is awarded by the British Academy. It was founded in 1976 to honour Derek Allen, FBA, who was secretary (1969–73) and treasurer (1973–75) of the British Academy. It was established by his widow and sons to recognise outst ...
for Celtic studies by the
British Academy
The British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences.
It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the sa ...
.
Works
* ''Sir Rhys ap Thomas and his Family: A Study in the Wars of the Roses and Early Tudor Politics'', 2nd edn, with a new introduction, University of Wales Press, 2014.
* (ed. with Peter Wakelin), ''Hidden Histories: Discovering the Heritage of Wales'' (Aberystwyth: Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, 2008)
* (with Roger S. Thomas) ''The making of the Tudor dynasty'', 3rd edn. (Stroud: Sutton, 2005)
* (ed.), ''The Household Book (1510–51) of Sir Edward Don: An Anglo-Welsh Knight and his Circle'' (Bedford: Buckinghamshire Record Society, 2004)
* ''The Short Oxford History of the British Isles: The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003)
References
Sources
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Griffiths, Ralph
Academics of Swansea University
20th-century Welsh historians
21st-century Welsh historians
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
Alumni of the University of Bristol
Fellows of the Learned Society of Wales