Tom Winnifrith. In Memoriam

Tom Winnifrith (1938-2020), teacher, scholar and academic, long time connected to the Department of Humanities of the University of Warwick, died last October. His daughter, Tabitha Gilchrist, writes an obituary in The Guardian where she reports the many aspects of her father's research from the history of Albania, particularly the Vlach people, to the Brontës:

After teaching at Emanuel School, Wandsworth (1960-1961), and Eton (1961-66), he returned to academic studies at Oxford, undertaking a BPhil in 19th century literature, and Liverpool University, where his doctoral thesis on the Brontës (later published as The Brontës and their Background) made scholars aware that some primary sources were untrustworthy because of careless editing.

Fellow colleague Carol Chillington Rutter points out that:

As a scholar, he specialised in Brontë studies where his expertise, as Peter Mack remembers, ‘derived from the fact that he realised that most of the Brontë manuscripts had passed through the hands of a notorious forger [T.J. Wise] and therefore had to be treated with strong scepticism. (...) He never gave a boring lecture. Claude Rawson, an early Head of Department, celebrated Tom as the man ‘who put voice into Stentor’. His Brontë seminars were always over-subscribed, and first year students, encountering Tom across the Iliad, really did think they were meeting the poet in the flesh.

He published several books about the Brontës, some of them in collaboration with Edward Chitham:  

The Brontës and their background : romance and reality, London : Macmillan, 1973

Brontë Facts and Brontë Problems (coauthor with Edward Chitham), MacMillan, 1983 

A New Life of Charlotte Brontë, MacMillan, 1988

Charlotte and Emily Brontë. Literary Lives  (coauthor with Edward Chitham), MacMillan, 1989

He edited some volumes on the poetry (and sayings) of Charlotte Brontë and Branwell Brontë:

The poems of Patrick Branwell Brontë Oxford  : Published for Shakespeare Head by Blackwell,1983.

The poems of Charlotte Brontë , Oxford : Published for Shakespeare Head by Blackwell, 1984

Selected Brontë poems (selected by Edward Chitham and Tom Winnifrith). Oxford : Basil Blackwell, 1985.

The sayings of Charlotte Brontë, London : Duckworth, 1996.

He edited or collaborated in scholar compilations of essays. For instance:

Critical essays on Emily Brontë / edited by Thomas John Winnifrith. New York : G.K. Hall ; London : Prentice Hall International, c1997.

A Companion to the Brontës, Editor(s): Diane Long Hoeveler Deborah Denenholz Morse: Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights and Their Filmic Adaptations (Pages: 501-511) (2016)

He contributed an introduction to a selection of unfinished tales by Charlotte Brontë:

Unfinished Novels, Charlotte Brontë. Introduction by Tom Winnifrith, Stroud - Alan Sutton Pub. 1993

He even coordinated a CD-ROM edition of the complete works of the Brontës:

Major Authors on CD-ROM: The Brontës / Tom Winnifrith, general editor. Woodbridge, Conn. ; Reading : Primary Source Media, c1997.

And, of course, he also was a frequent contributor to Brontë Studies and other scholar publications. Here are some examples:

The Background to Sir James Stephen's Letter, Brontë Society Transactions, Volume 21(4), (1994), pp. 151-153

The Birstall Letters, Brontë Society Transactions, Volume 21(5), (1995), pp.  187-191

A Note on some Place-Names in North West Derbyshire, Brontë Society Transactions, Volume 21(7), (1996), pp. 337-338

The Life of Patrick Branwell Brontë, Brontë Society Transactions, Volume 24(1), (1999), pp. 1-10

Mrs Robinson and Her Cousins, Brontë Society Transactions, Volume 24(2), (1999), pp. 186-190

More on the Robinsons and Their Relations, Brontë Society Transactions, Volume 25(1), (2000), pp. 79-84

Brontë Biography and Brontë Criticism, Brontë Studies, Volume 27(3), (2002), pp. 181-184

Joanna Hutton. An appreciation, Brontë Studies, Volume 28(1), (2003), pp.91

The Church Census and the Brontës, Brontë Studies, Brontë Studies, Volume 32(3), (2007), pp. 245-251

Charlotte and Emily Brontë: A Study in the Rise and Fall of Literary Reputations, The Yearbook of English Studies, Vol. 26, Strategies of Reading: Dickens and after Special Number (1996), pp. 14-24

The Religion of Patrick Brontë, Brontë Studies, Volume 37(4), (2012), pp. 267-271

He also was, for a time, very active in the Brontë Society but eventually, as James Pettifer wrote in the introduction of his latest book, Nobody's Kingdom:

[became] disillusioned by the intractable conflicts in that organisation.

Conflicts in the Brontë Society? We are stunned (*irony mode on*). Fortunately, his disappointment didn't affect his love for the Brontës as this funny anecdote recalled by his daughter in The Guardian shows:

Things at home were far from conventional; order was lacking, but the clues in birthday treasure hunts were written in Latin rhyming couplets, and his contributions to a game of Consequences consisted entirely of quotations from Wuthering Heights.

Let's conclude this hasty appreciation of Tom Winnifrith's Brontë side with a quote from the introduction of his 'new' Life of Charlotte Brontë that somehow summarises Dr Winnifrith's style and vision:

Writing a new life of Charlotte Brontë is rather like going for a walk on the moors above Haworth. There are familiar landmarks and unexpected views, both of great beauty. There are dreary stretches, hidden pitfalls and sudden squalls which blow up out of nowhere. The twisting paths and the complexities of Charlotte’s life have been well covered, but seem still to be insufficiently appreciated. There is a timeless quality about the landscape and about Charlotte’s story, but against this one has to balance grim relics from the nineteenth century and garish intrusions from the twentieth. 

EDIT: Read the obituary published in Le Courrier des Balkans (in French).