Fragments of University Reminiscence (1922–1972)

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Notes

1 Said by Columbus in his final years, when, after his third expedition, he was suffering from complete disillusionment and was living in penury (see William C. Atkinson, A History of Spain and Portugal. The Peninsula and Its Peoples: The Pattern of Their Society and Civilization [Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1960], 134).

2 It was in 1946 that Atkinson undertook his first lecture tour of Latin America, funded, as he says, by the British Council. There were several subsequent lecture tours supported by the British Council (most notably, in 1960, 1966 and 1971); he held the title ‘Visiting British Council Lecturer’. At least some of the lectures he gave about Britain during these tours have survived, and copies are in Glasgow University’s Archives (see, for instance, ‘El carácter inglés a través de la historia social inglesa’, delivered throughout Latin America in 1946, and published in Revista de América (September 1946); ‘Latin America As Seen from Great Britain’, delivered at the Universidad del Sur, Bahía Blanca, Argentina, 1971). Just before his retirement in 1971 he wrote an article commenting upon his last tour of Latin America earlier that year, which also includes reminiscences of, and comparisons with, his earlier tours. See William C. Atkinson, ‘A Rolling Stone Bows Out’, Glasgow University Gazette, 67 (December 1971), 1–3; republished below.

3 At this remove in time, it is difficult to identify these three published lectures. But one of the lectures he gave in 1946, in Argentina and no doubt in other Latin-American countries, was his ‘Impresiones de Latino-America’, Saber Vivir (Buenos Aires), 65 (September 1946).

4 Atkinson made productive use of these numerous contacts, to the benefit of many of his students and former students at Glasgow University. For evidence of the assistance he generously gave them in their careers, whether in academia or elsewhere, see John C. McIntyre, ‘Professor William C. Atkinson (WCA) As Remembered by Some Former Students’; see also Giovanni Pontiero, ‘Professor William Atkinson’, The Independent, 30 September 1992, p. 23.

5 A reference to his eldest child and only son, Anthony C. [Cedric] Atkinson. An independent, non-profit-making day school, Markham College is among the most prestigious schools in Lima, Peru. Founded by British expatriates, the College is co-educational, bi-lingual and secular.

6 A reference to the dictatorship of Juan Domingo Perón (1895–1974), who became President of Argentina in 1946 and to the role of his second wife, Eva Perón (1919–1952). She collaborated closely with him in his political and other activities. Perón was overthrown in a coup d’état in 1955, but returned, after eighteen years of exile, to become in October 1973 briefly President of Argentina once more; he died in July 1974. His third wife, Isabel Perón succeeded him as President. We might wonder what Atkinson would have made of Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice’s musical dramatization of the life of Eva Perón (Evita, 1978) and its now famous songs. He was clearly no admirer of Perón, or of Eva Perón.

7 GKN plc is a British multinational company specializing in automotive and aerospace components. Formerly known as Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds, the company, with its headquarters in Redditch, Worcestershire, can trace its origins back to 1759 and the Industrial Revolution.

8 Impossible now to identify all of the graduates from Glasgow University Atkinson refers to here, who, with his support, went out to various countries in Latin America to make or to further their careers. However, the graduate who launched and became director of the new British Institute in Brasilia (1960–1962) could have been Giovanni Pontiero (see McIntyre, ‘Professor William C. Atkinson [WCA]’); A. Gordon Kinder, ‘Giovanni Pontiero (1932–1996)’, BHS (Glasgow), LXXIII:3 (1996), 333–35 (p. 333). According to Kinder, however, Pontiero was ‘Director of Studies at the English Cultural Institute (British Council)’ in João Pessoa. If Kinder is correct, then it was another of Atkinson’s graduates who launched the British Institute in Brasilia.

9 The reviewers who chided Atkinson no doubt were reviewing his A History of Spain and Portugal (1960), in which he makes similar observations about Brazil: whose ‘vast extent found its answer not in disruption but in the principle of empire; […] Brazil was fortunate in having fallen to Portugal’ (276).

10 Born in Lima, Luis Alberto Félix Sánchez Sánchez (1900–1994) was a Peruvian lawyer, jurist, philosopher, historian, writer and politician. During Alan García’s presidency of Peru (1985–1990), Dr Alberto Sánchez was his Vice President and was appointed for a short period as Prime Minister of Peru. In Congress he served twice as President of the Senate. He was three times Provost of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos.

11 For reference to student unrest in 1968 and thereafter, as it affected British universities, see McIntyre, ‘Professor William C. Atkinson (WCA)’. Regarding student unrest at Essex University in particular, where Albert Sloman was its first vice-chancellor, see Ann L. Mackenzie, ‘Sloman, Sir Albert Edward (1921–2012), Hispanic scholar and university administrator’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford U. P., 2016), Oxford Biography Index Number 101105451; <https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/105451> (accessed 6 February 2018). The Department of Hispanic Studies at Glasgow University saw its share of student unrest at this period, as several articles published in the University’s student magazine, Glasgow University Guardian, reveal. See, for instance, ‘Explosion in Spanish Department!’, Guardian, 19:7 (14 February 1969), 1; ‘Professor Threatens SRC [Student Representative Council] with Prosecution’, Guardian, 20:5 (22 January 1970), 1–2. In Atkinson’s Department the students were protesting in part because there was no staff-student committee. Such committees are the norm in the twenty-first century, but were still regarded askance in some departments at Glasgow in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In Atkinson’s Department of Hispanic Studies, in 1969–1970, the students were also protesting that there was too much medieval Spanish literature taught in the Ordinary (i.e., First Year) classes; and that prose-translations were marked to a higher standard in Spanish than in the other Modern Languages. The students believed that these factors contributed to the fail rate of 50% or more in Hispanic Studies First Year Degree Examinations. Eventually, compromise was reached through discussions, and harmony was restored. See, on this dispute and its resolution, Bernard McGuirk’s memoir of Geoffrey W. Connell (1928–2014)’, BSS, XCIII:1 (2016), 153–56 (p. 154).

12 President John F. Kennedy (1917–1963), President of the United States from 1961 until his assassination in 1963, established the Alliance for Progress, of which Atkinson is so critical, to assist underdeveloped countries worldwide. Initiated in 1961, the Alliance for Progress (Alianza para el Progreso) aimed to establish economic cooperation between the US and Latin America; it was disbanded in 1973.

13 During the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–1940), Pátzcuaro became a cultural centre and major destination for tourism. Public monuments were built and archeological excavations were carried out to help conserve its colonial and indigenous history and traditions. A recent book, the product of archival and historical research, argues that the creation of Pátzcuaro laid the foundations of modern Mexico (see Jennifer Jolly, Creating Pátzcuaro, Creating Mexico: Art, Tourism and Nation Building under Lázaro Cárdenas [Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 2018]).

14 George Canning (1770–1827) was Foreign Secretary (1807–1809) under the Duke of Portland. He was passed over as successor to Portland in favour of Spencer Perceval. After Perceval was assassinated in 1812, Canning served under the new Prime Minister, the Earl of Liverpool, as British Ambassador to Portugal (1814–1816). He was Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons (1822–1827). Canning had major achievements in foreign affairs, helping to guarantee the independence of the Latin-American colonies of Spain and of Portugal (i.e. Brazil) and ensuring a major trading advantage for Britain. Named after him, Canning House in Belgravia, where the Hispanic and Luso Brazilian Council is based, houses a research library and is used for cultural and educational events. What every schoolboy is said to know about Canning is that he ‘called a New World into being to redress the balance of the Old’. Or so Atkinson put it, in the lecture he delivered at Canning House, London on 27 March 1950, to commemorate the bicentenary of Miranda’s birth. For this lecture, see William C. Atkinson, ‘Miranda: His Life and Times’ (London: Venezuelan Embassy, 1950), 24 pp.; see p. 14.

* Disclosure Statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the editor.