The British Institute of Florence, established in 1917 and granted a Royal Charter in 1923, was the first of the British cultural institutes to operate overseas and served as a model for the establishment of the British Council in 1934. In the drawing rooms and libraries of pre-war Florence local residents, among them poets, journalists, university professors, publishers and journalists such as Herbert Trench, Lina Waterfield, Guido Ferrando, Guido Biagi and Aldo Sorani, discussed the idea of a reading room, library and space for cultural exchange between Britain and Italy.