Introduction II: William C. Atkinson (1902–1992) Scholar of Spain, Portugal and Latin America

Abstract

A pioneering Hispanist who was to ensure that not only Spain but Portugal and Latin America would become subjects of major study at universities in the United Kingdom, William Christopher Atkinson was born in Belfast on 9 August 1902, son of Robert Joseph Atkinson, schoolmaster and his wife Rachel (née Abraham). He attended Woodvale National School and the Methodist College, Belfast and was awarded several entrance scholarships, including a Belfast City Scholarship, to Queen's University Belfast, where he studied in the Department headed by Ignacio González-Llubera. He was to become the first professor of our discipline in the British Isles to have read Spanish as an undergraduate. He graduated with a First Class Honours BA in French and Spanish in June 1924. His degree results were so outstanding that he was awarded the Henry Hutchinson-Stewart Literary Scholarship for being the best graduate of his year in Modern Languages (including English). This scholarship enabled him to spend a full year in Spain studying for a postgraduate degree and getting to know the country and its people. 1 Based at Madrid, besides taking courses at the University, he did research at the Biblioteca Nacional and various other libraries, and completed his thesis for a research MA, awarded by Queen's University Belfast in June 1925. His thesis dealt with the important but until then scarcely studied sixteenth-century Spanish humanist, Hernán Pérez de Oliva. 2 By the time he was appointed Lecturer in charge of the 1 Some account is given of his year in Madrid, 1924-1925, in