Duke of Edinburgh’s trusty ‘gatekeeper’
Dame Anne Griffiths Prince Philip’s personal archivist BORN NOVEMBER 2, 1932 - DIED MARCH 3, 2017, AGED 84
IN her office next door to Prince Philip’s drawing room, Dame Anne Griffiths would have to carry out any number of tasks associated with the Duke of Edinburgh’s personal archives.
Her day could entail dealing with various authors, answering any number of enquiries and helping with research material should His Royal Highness be writing a speech.
She would keep his paperwork up to date, assemble pictures for various exhibitions, oversee gifts he had received and control the public and media’s access to private footage and films that the Prince had personally shot in his younger years. During her 65 years of service Dame Anne became a most trusted and valued gatekeeper for the Duke.
She was born in north London and educated at St Leonards School in St Andrews. Like many intelligent girls of her generation she didn’t go to university but trained at Mrs Hoster’s Secretarial College in London before joining the Duke of Edinburgh’s office as a lady clerk in 1952.
Shortly after King George Vl’s death, additional temporary staff were taken on to help with extra work created by the Coronation. Anne, however, stayed at Buckingham Palace until she married in 1960.
During this period she was one of two lady clerks who accompanied Prince Philip on board Britannia on his 1956/57 trip to the South Atlantic and the Melbourne Olympic Games.
With her colleague, Ione Eadie (who later married Rear-Admiral John Adams, Commander of the Royal Yacht during the tour), she was the first British woman ever to cross the Antarctic Circle.
After her wedding to David Griffiths the couple lived variously in Bulawayo, now Zimbabwe, and Australia and went on to have five children. David died in 1982 and the following year Prince Philip called her back to the palace and put her in charge of his private archive.
Dame Anne was one of the few non-royal guests at Prince Philip’s 90th birthday luncheon at Windsor Castle in 2011. She was made a Dame in 2005.
She is survived by three sons and one daughter. Another daughter, Caroline, died in 1986.