Griffith Watkins was born in New Zealand to a New Zealand mother, Kate, and Australian father, Larry Watkins. He lived in Western Australia from the age of six and adopted the West Australian lifestyle. Watkins was educated at Swanbourne Primary School and Scotch College. He gained a Bachelor of Education from the University of Western Australia. Watkins was rapidly promoted to demonstration teacher at Claremont and Graylands Teacher Training Colleges. After gaining an Art Teaching Diploma he became Senior master at Tuart Hill High School and was finally offered a position as lecturer in Art History at Claremont Teachers College. In 1966 he took long service leave and worked as a goldminer at Kalgoorlie and a stockman inland from Broome, Western Australia. Watkins was the winner of numerous prizes for his poetry and fiction and his work has been broadcast on ABC radio. He took his own life by drowning at the age of 39.
(Source: Peter Jeffery, 'Afterword', God in the Afternoon : Selected Poetry and Fiction by Griffith Watkins (1990): 243-253).
