Ralph A. Griffiths

Ralph Alan Griffiths is a historian and an emeritus professor at Swansea University.

Life

Griffiths was born and brought up in a mining valley between Glamorgan and Monmouthshire.{{cite web|url=http://www.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/resources/interviews/Griffiths_Ralph.html|title=Professor Ralph Griffiths|publisher=Making History|accessdate=29 March 2020}} 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.{{cite web|url=https://www.swansea.ac.uk/staff/arts-and-humanities/academic/griffithsralph/|title=Professor Emeritus Ralph A. Griffiths, OBE|publisher=University of Swansea|accessdate=29 March 2020}}

Griffiths was a member, and later chair, of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, sat on the Advisory Council on Public Records, and on the Council of the Royal Historical Society. In 2001 he delivered the British Academy's Sir John Rhŷs Memorial Lecture.{{cite web|title=Sir John Rhŷs Memorial Lectures|website=The British Academy|url=https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/events/lectures/listings/sir-john-rhys-memorial-lectures/}} [https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/1969/pba117p139.pdf text] In 2004, Griffiths was appointed general editor of the Gwent County History, published in five volumes between 2004 and 2013.{{sfn|Griffiths|2004|loc=Preface}} In 2011, he was elected a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales.{{Cite web |last=Wales |first=The Learned Society of |title=Ralph Griffiths |url=https://www.learnedsociety.wales/fellow/ralph-griffiths-3/ |access-date=2023-08-30 |website=The Learned Society of Wales |language=en-US}} In 2021, he was awarded the Derek Allen Prize for Celtic studies by the British Academy.{{cite web |title=Leading slavery scholar wins prestigious British Academy prize for contributions to humanities and social sciences |url=https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news/leading-slavery-scholar-wins-prestigious-british-academy-prize-for-contributions-to-humanities-and-social-sciences/ |website=The British Academy |access-date=2 September 2021 |language=en}}

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. {{ISBN|9781783160143}}
(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)