Bill Griffiths - Life, Work, and Scholarship

Life, Work, and Scholarship

Beginning 1996 and up until his dealth, Griffiths worked with Bill Lancaster at the Centre for Northern Studies at Northumbria University, Newcastle. He became a highly active assistant editor to Lancaster's 'Northern Review, a Journal of Regional and Cultural Affairs', which lasted ten years. This was a remarkably productive period for Griffiths which saw the publishing of a series of books on north east dialect, beginning with "North East Dialect, Survey and Word list" and "North East Dialect, the Texts" in 1998. Published by the Centre for Northern Studies, these ran to several editions before culminating with A Dictionary of North East Dialect by Northumbria University Press in 2004. The Dictionary attracted national attention and was hailed as a landmark in the history of English dialects. Griffiths was able to draw upon his vast scholarship of Saxon literature and Old English, providing sophisticated etymologies that drew upon sources as far back as the eighth century.

The Centre was awarded a major grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2005 to continue dialect research which facilitated the publication by Northumbria University Press of three more volumes of dialect studies: Stotties and Spicecake, the Story of North East Cooking, Pitmatic: the talk of the North East Coalfield (a volume that was featured heavily in the media and is credited with capturing for posterity the rapidly disappearing yet distinctive dialect of the northern coalfields), and 'Fishing and Folk: Life and Dialect on the North Sea Coast', this last published posthumously in 2008.

Griffiths was working with Bill Lancaster at the time of his death to secure funding for another dialect project on children's games and pastimes. In 2003 the Centre was commissioned by Sage/Music North to catalogue the archive of Northern Sinfonia and produce a history of the orchestra for the opening of the Sage music centre. A highly skilled archivist and talented classical musician, Griffiths was considered the ideal person to do this work which was completed ahead of schedule. Subsequently, Northern Sinfonia, a Magic of its Own, was published in 2004. His last work at the Centre was the cataloguing of the T. Dan Smith archive of taped recordings.

Of tangential interest to these projects, it could be noted that Griffiths organised an exhibition in his adopted home of Seaham which was seen by the Queen on her Golden Jubilee Tour and he published numerous small books and pamphlets dealing with his adopted community.