Grafton Melville Richards

Grafton Melville Richards (1910-1973) was a Welsh Scholar.

He was born in November 1910 as the third son of William and Elizabeth Richards (his father was a railway foreman) in Ffair-fach, Llandeilo, Carms. Grafton Richard married and had a son and daughter. He was educated at Neath grammar school and went onto achieve a first-class (1:1) Honours degree in Welsh from Swansea University College, starting in 1928 and finishing in 1931. In 1933, he gained a research M.A. with distinction. Following on from that, he was elected into a University Fellowship in 1934 which enabled him to continue his studies in Dublin with the scholars, Osborn Bergin, Myles Dillon and Gerald Murphy, as well as in Paris with Joseph Vendryes, Antoine Meillet and Émile Benveniste. In October 1936, he was given the position of Research Assistant Lecturer in Welsh at Swansea University and later became Assistant Lecturer in April 1937.

Melville Richards published his work in academic journals on the Syntax of the sentence in Medieval Welsh and revealed his ability early in his career as he was one of a number of language scholars that were associated with Henry Lewis. During the Second World War, Melville Richards was attached to Bletchley Park. His name is listed on the Bletchley Park roll of honour with the grade of FO (Foreign Office) civilian; he served at Bletchley Park between 1941-1945 in Hut 9A, Elmers School, Hut 18 and Block G, ISOS (Intelligence Service Oliver Strachey which was responsible for Abwehr Enigma traffic). [1] He used his experiences at war to write his only novel Y Gelyn Mewnol[2] in 1946, an espionage story set in West Wales.

After the end of the war, he returned to Swansea (where he stayed until 1947) which was where he was appointed Lecturer, the Reader and Head of Celtic Studies Department in Liverpool University. From there, he was elected to the Chair of Welsh at the University College of North Wales, Bangor in 1965. He gained a PhD from Liverpool 1965.

Grafton Melville Richard's first area of interest in his research were Celtic studies and Welsh syntax. In his early research, he published Llawlyfr Hen Wyddeleg in 1935 which was a handbook based on Rudolf Thurneysen's magisterial 'Grammar of Old Irish'. In 1938, he published Cystrawen y Frawddeg Gymraeg which is a clear guide to the syntax of the sentence in modern Welsh. However, it has been unfavorably reviewed by T. J. Morgan in Y Llenor. His area of research started changing in the early 1950s as he started to publish work on Welsh place-names and onomastics which led onto be his primary academic interest.

He single-handedly produced an historical archive of place-names in Wales and made clear of their meaning and significance in a comprehensive Welsh onomasticon. His research was conducted in a range of fields of study which are: settlement patterns and demography, the history of governance and administration, legal custom and structures, toponyms as well as the more strictly linguistic area.

He published several books and academic articles such as, a medieval Welsh law book, another law book, Jesus College LVII (1957), The Laws of Hywel Dda (1954), Welsh Administrative and Territorial Units (1969) as well as editing an English and Welsh an Atlas of Anglesey in 1972. Not only did these important articles explain the significance of place-names, they lay out the methodology and scholarly standards in a hazardous area of academic study. Some of his research and work brought him international recognition. For example, 'his contributions to the Batsford The names of towns and cities in Britain (1970), as a member of the council of the English Place-Name Society, a member of the International Committee on Onomastic Sciences and chairman of the Council for Name Studies of Great Britain and Ireland...' [3]

Melville Richard planned to publish volumes but did not succeed, yet his archive of 300,000 slips have been edited and is available online [4] (transcribed in English and Welsh).

Around 1970, his health deteriorated. He died at home in Benllech, Anglesey on 3 November 1973. His funeral service was held in Colwyn Bay Crematorium on 8 November.[3]

References
  1. https://bletchleypark.org.uk/roll-of-honour/search?keyword=Melville&page=1&surname=Richards
  2. Llandybie: Llyfrau'r Dryw
  3. "The National Library of Wales :: Dictionary of Welsh Biography". yba.llgc.org.uk. Retrieved 2018-03-21.
  4. "Cronfa Ddata Enwau Lleoedd Archif Melville Richards". www.e-gymraeg.co.uk. Retrieved 2018-03-21.
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