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William Atkinson | |
|---|---|
| Born | 9 August 1902 |
| Died | 19 September 1992 (aged 90) |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Hispanist |
| Years active | 1925–1977 |
William Christopher Atkinson (9 August 1902 – 19 September 1992) was a British Hispanist.
Early life and education
[edit]William Christopher Atkinson was born on 9 August 1902 in Belfast, Northern Ireland.[1] He was the second son of Methodists Robert Joseph Atkinson (c. 1867–1925) and his wife Rachel, née Abraham (c. 1874–1955).[1][2][3][4][5] His brothers were Victor Hugh (1900–70), a physician; Robert Arthur (b. 1905), a civil servant; and Joseph Stanley (b. 1910), a dentist.[6][7][8][9]
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Atkinson attended Woodvale National School in Belfast, where his father was schoolmaster, and like his brothers enrolled in the mixed grammar school Methodist College Belfast, beginning in the 1914–15 year.[1][2][8] There, he played in the First XI of the boys' cricket team, and was on the academic prize list, receiving several exhibitions for history and languages, and the Belfast City Scholarship to Queen's University Belfast.[1][8][10] He accepted, originally reading English, French, Latin and Spanish, but graduating with a First Class Honours BA in just French and Spanish in 1924.[1] As an undergraduate, Atkinson travelled widely in France and Spain, making a month-long sojourn into Barcelona amid the 1923 Spanish coup d'état.[10][11] The same year, Atkinson won an essay prize posted by the fledgling Bulletin of Spanish Studies (now of Hispanic Studies) on the subject, 'Why learn Spanish?' — his 'delightful' rationale being, to "penetrate the nobility of the language, the charm of the people, the glory of the literature—though commerce were dead and Latin America a back number, what need we any further incentives?"[12][13]
Study in Spain
[edit]
For his exceptional marks, Atkinson received the Henry Hutchinson-Stewart Literary Scholarship and another studentship valued at £70 altogether, that enabled him to study for an MA from Queen's while taking courses in Spanish literature at the University of Madrid.[1][11] He also travelled the country's south and east and acquired "a complete mastery of the spoken tongue together with a first-hand experience of life in the peninsula", according to Spanish professor Ignacio González-Llubera.[10][11] Under his guidance, Atkinson published the thesis, "an attractive monograph" of the sixteenth-century humanist Hernán Pérez de Oliva, in 1925.[10] Two years later, he wrote the book Hernán Pérez de Oliva, and a critical accompaniment to de Oliva's Teatro, both republished in the prestigious Revue hispanique of the Hispanic Society of America.[1][14][15]
Career
[edit]Durham University
[edit]In January 1926, Atkinson took up the position of Lecturer in charge of the Department of Spanish at Armstrong College, Durham University (now a part of Newcastle University) in Newcastle upon Tyne.[10] Postsecondary Spanish education was still in its infancy in Britain, and lacked the prestige of the other modern languages.[1] Indeed, Atkinson was the first professor of Spanish in Great Britain and Ireland to have also read the subject as an undergraduate.[16][17] However, Durham only offered Spanish as a subsidiary degree, and Atkinson's post required him also to teach pass/fail classes for arts and commerce students.[1]
Nevertheless, Atkinson became an advocate for the academic merits of learning Spanish. In 1927, he founded a 'Spanish Circle', where lecturers gave talks on poetry, politics and drama, yielding "a very real interest in the language and literature in aspects remote from mere utilitarianism" — that is, strictly relating to commerce.[19] This work was rewarded when from the 1927–28 term Spanish was made an honours BA subject in its own right.[20] In the meantime, Atkinson served as Honorary Secretary of the Modern Humanities Research Association (1929–36) and Dean of the University's Faculty of Commerce (1930–31), helped mark Spanish exams at universities across Britain, and taught literature at the annual Spanish summer school at Santander (1926–32) hosted by E. Allison Peers.[21] Atkinson also maintained a steady and diverse academic output, including a biography of Christopher Columbus (1925) and four studies of three Golden Age literary genres (1927).[1] His contribution of a chapter on 'Spain: The County, Its Peoples and Languages' to Peers' first Spain: A Companion to Spanish Studies (1929) so impressed the Liverpool Hispanist that he was made co-author
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Mackenzie, Ann L. (16 March 2018). "Introduction II: William C. Atkinson (1902–1992) Scholar of Spain, Portugal and Latin America". Bulletin of Spanish Studies. 95 (2–3): 17–43. doi:10.1080/14753820.2018.1489031. ISSN 1475-3820.
- ^ a b "DEATH". The Northern Whig and Belfast Post. 24 April 1925. p. 8. Retrieved 25 October 2024.
- ^ "NEWS IN BRIEF". The Portadown Times. 21 January 1955. p. 6. Retrieved 25 October 2024.
- ^ United Kingdom census (1901). "Form A." Census of Ireland. Retrieved 25 October 2024.
- ^ United Kingdom census (1911). "Form A." Census of Ireland. Retrieved 25 October 2024.
- ^ "Victor Hugh Atkinson". www.familysearch.org. Retrieved 26 October 2024.
- ^ "Methodist College Register 6". www.lennonwylie.co.uk. Retrieved 26 October 2024.
- ^ a b c "Methodist College Register 7". www.lennonwylie.co.uk. Retrieved 26 October 2024.
- ^ "Methodist College Register 8". www.lennonwylie.co.uk. Retrieved 26 October 2024.
- ^ a b c d e "W. C. Atkinson's original application for the Chair of Spanish at Glasgow". Bulletin of Spanish Studies. 95 (2–3): 97–102. 16 March 2018. doi:10.1080/14753820.2018.1487688. ISSN 1475-3820.
- ^ a b c Atkinson, William C. (16 March 2018). "Fragments of University Reminiscence (1922–1972)". Bulletin of Spanish Studies. 95 (2–3): 91–96. doi:10.1080/14753820.2018.1489037. ISSN 1475-3820.
- ^ "Literary competitions". Bulletin of Hispanic Studies. 1 (2): 87–88. 1924-01. doi:10.1080/14753825012331368816. ISSN 0007-490X.
{{cite journal}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Atkinson, Wm. (1924-01). "Why learn Spanish?". Bulletin of Hispanic Studies. 1 (2): 74–75. doi:10.1080/14753825012331368766. ISSN 0007-490X.
{{cite journal}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Atkinson, William (1927). "Hernán Perez de Oliva: A Biographical and Critical Study". In Foulché-Delbosc, Raymond (ed.). Revue Hispanique (71 ed.). Vaduz: Kraus Reprint Ltd (published 1966). pp. 309–484.
- ^ de Oliva, Hernán Pérez; Atkinson, William (1927). "Teatro". In Foulché-Delbosc, Raymond (ed.). Revue Hispanique (in English and Spanish) (69 ed.). Paris: Librairie C. Klincksieck. pp. 521–659.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link) - ^ Frost, Ann (2019). "The emergence and growth of Hispanic Studies in British and Irish universities" (PDF). Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland. Retrieved 10 November 2024.
- ^ Mackenzie, Ann L.; Round, Nicholas G. (1993-10). "William Christopher Atkinson (1902-1992)". Bulletin of Hispanic Studies. 70 (4): 435. doi:10.3828/bhs.70.4.435. ISSN 1475-3839.
{{cite journal}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ ATKINSON, WM. (1927-01). "Studies in literary decadence: the picaresque novel". Bulletin of Hispanic Studies. 4 (13): 19. doi:10.3828/bhs.4.13.19.
{{cite journal}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Allsop, W. E.; Pratley, R. W.C. (1928-01). "Notes and news". Bulletin of Hispanic Studies. 5 (17): 46–47. doi:10.1080/14753825012331361220. ISSN 0007-490X.
{{cite journal}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ University of Durham Calendar for the Year 1930–1931. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Andrew Reid & Co., Ltd. 1930. pp. 64, 88.
- ^ Byrne, Ceri (16 March 2018). "The Publications, Appointments and Other Achievements (1925–1977) of William C. Atkinson". Bulletin of Spanish Studies. 95 (2–3): 45–83. doi:10.1080/14753820.2018.1493878. ISSN 1475-3820.