‘The Hispanic-Anglosphere: transnational networks, global communities (late 18th-20th centuries)’ is bringing together historians in the British Isles, continental Europe, the Americas and Russia to work in association with scholars from other disciplines and non-academic partners, particularly heritage organisations, to reveal the full extent of the contribution made by those who from any point of the British were closely engaged with the global Hispanic world, regardless of their birth, religion or political allegiance (often branded as ‘Hispanophiles’) as well as of those who came from the Hispanic world to the British Isles as visitors, exiles and/or migrants.

The project is being officially launched with a public open meeting at the National Trust Tyntesfield today – Saturday 4th November, 3 pm (at the Sawmill). Few people know that the founder of the neo-gothic Victorian mansion and parkland of Tyntesfield, William Gibbs, was born in Madrid and that his family made much of its fortune through trading Spanish wine and Peruvian guano. The meeting will give the public a chance to learn more about this fascinating story while also helping to shape future expert research with suggestions and questions, some of which may be answered through this website (https://hispanic-anglosphere.com/shape-our-research/). To celebrate the occasion, a leading Spanish scholar will play in an original guitar dating back to 1819 a number of extracts from little-known guitar compositions published in the British Isles by Spanish composers, including one dedicated to the Scottish Fourth Earl of Fife, a British volunteer in the Spanish Army during the Peninsular War who was also a friend of the South American liberator José de San Martin.