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Series
British Council: Registered Files, Italy
Catalogue reference: BW 40
What's it about?
BW 40
Headquarters files relating to British Council activities in Italy, including correspondence with the overseas representative there. The files include material which pre-dates the posting of the first Council representative to Italy, principally...
Full description and record details
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Reference (The unique identifier to the record described, used to order and refer to it)
- BW 40
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Title (The name of the record)
- British Council: Registered Files, Italy
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Date (When the record was created)
- 1937-2002
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Description (What the record is about)
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Headquarters files relating to British Council activities in Italy, including correspondence with the overseas representative there.
The files include material which pre-dates the posting of the first Council representative to Italy, principally dealing with relations with the Florence Institute, and also include detailed correspondence relating to the Council's role in providing the British stand at the bi-annual fine arts exhibition in Venice (the Venice Biennale).
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Held by (Who holds the record)
- The National Archives, Kew
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Legal status (A note as to whether the record being described is a Public Record or not)
- Public Record(s)
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Language (The language of the record)
- English and Italian
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Creator(s) (The creator of the record)
- British Council, 1936-1936
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Physical description (The amount and form of the record)
- 121 file(s)
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Access conditions (Information on conditions that restrict or affect access to the record)
- Open unless otherwise stated
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Immediate source of acquisition (When and where the record was acquired from)
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From 1977 British Council
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Subjects (Categories and themes found in our collection (our subject list is under development, and some records may have no subjects or fewer than expected))
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Accruals (Indicates whether the archive expects to receive further records in future)
- Series is accruing.
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Administrative / biographical background (Historical or biographical information about the creator of the record and the context of its creation)
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In 1917, a British Institute was opened in Florence by local British residents, to provide English teaching facilities as well as a forum for Anglo-Italian intellectual exchanges. The institute received a royal charter in 1923, but was nonetheless always short of funds. The British Council began giving the Institute grants in support of its work soon after the council was founded in 1934, and these enabled the Institute to open secondary branches in Milan and Rome in 1938. The British Council had a resident representative in Italy from 1939, when it took over the running of the two secondary institutes, and opened its own new ones in Genoa, Naples and Palermo.
The duties of an overseas representative include the promotion of a wider knowledge and understanding of Great Britain in other countries through cultural and educational co-operation, and this rôle was seen as being of great importance in Italy in the months before the outbreak of the Second World War, and again in the cold war period following 1945.
Italy entered the Second World War in 1940, at which time the British Council representation there withdrew and its institutes closed. At the end of the War the council returned to Italy, however, and has had permanent representation there ever since. The council has been particularly involved in organising British representation at the bi-annual fine arts exhibition in Venice (the Venice Biennale) since it restarted in 1948.
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Record URL
- https://beta.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/id/C3444/
Catalogue hierarchy
Over 27 million records
This record is held at The National Archives, Kew
13,685 records
Within the department: BW
Records of the British Council
You are currently looking at the series: BW 40
British Council: Registered Files, Italy
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