Thomas Hugh Bell (1844-1931)
1844 February 10th. Born at Walker-on-Tyne the eldest son of Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell and a grandson of Thomas Bell of Lowhurst, Cumberland.
Sir (Thomas) Hugh Bell, 2nd Baronet CB JP FSA (10 February 1844 – 29 June 1931) was long time mayor of Middlesbrough, High Sheriff of Durham 1895, Justice of the Peace, Deputy Lieutenant of County Durham, Lord Lieutenant of the North Riding of Yorkshire.
1907 Became President of the Iron and Steel Institute.
1931 June 29th. Died at his London Residence - 95, Sloane Street, London S.W.1.
1931 Obituary [1]
The death of Sir Hugh Bell, which took place at his London residence, 95, Sloane-street, S.W.1, as the result of an illness of a few days' duration only, in the early hours of Monday last, June 29th, severs one of the few remaining links which still connect the present times with the earlier years of the reign of Queen Victoria, and removes from the scene of many years of strenuous activities a picturesque and forceful personality which will be greatly missed in many departments of the social, business, and technical world.
Sir Hugh's span of life he was eighty-seven at the time of his death, was contemporaneous with the rise and progress of modern industrialism, and in particular with that of the iron and steel trades, and of the chemical industries, in the development of which both he and his father before him played intimate and conspicuously successful parts.
Thomas Hugh Bell was born at Walker-on-Tyne on February 1Oth, 1844. He was the elder son of Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, and a grandson of Thomas Bell, of Lowhurst, Cumberland, who had previously left the western county of his birth and settled at Gateshead.
Here, in 1807, Thomas Bell entered the firm of Losh and Co., chemical manufacturer's, which eventually became the firm of Losh, Wilson and Bell, and was instrumental in introducing into this country the Leblanc soda process.
Isaac Lowthian Bell married in 1842 a daughter of Hugh Lee Pattinson, the well-known chemist, and in 1850 entered into partnership with his father-in-law and established another chemical works at Washington, where, in 1860, the first aluminium ever produced on a commercial scale in this country was manufactured by the St. Claire Deville process. Sir Lowthian - as he later became was a genius.
He was also a man of strong personality and restless energy. By 1866 he had added to the Washington works a blast-furnace, and amongst other technical improvements utilised the exhaust steam from the blowing engines to heat the water required in the process of lead extraction and desilverisation with which the name of his father-in-law, Hugh Pattinson, is associated.
It was in an atmosphere, therefore, of scientific and technical enterprise, pursued both by his father and his grandfather with great business ability, that Hugh Bell was brought up. The training and methods which his paternal grandfather had applied to his son, Isaac Lowthian, were applied in turn by the latter to his own two sons, Hugh and Charles.
Lowthian Bell had been educated privately at Newcastle, and subsequently at Edinburgh University, at the Sorbonne in Paris, in Germany, and even in Denmark. The sons were to follow a very similar course. Hugh's education commenced at a private school not far from his home, and was continued at Murchiston House School, Edinburgh.
At the age of fifteen he was sent to Paris to study, and attended classes held at the Sorbonne by Deville, and later he went to Gottingen, where he continued his studies under Friedrich Wohler and Stein. It was during his residence abroad that he acquired that admirable fluency of expression, both in French and in German, which he exhibited so often in after life, in speeches in both languages.
His brother Charles had to serve a somewhat similar apprenticeship, only the nature of his training was slightly different. Hugh Bell's education included science, but leaned more towards the business side, in order the better to fit him for the administrational duties he was destined to fulfil. Charles Bell was educated at Wellington, at the School of Mines, Paris, and at a technical institute in Germany. He was to be the technical man; Hugh, his brother, the business man.
Charles managed the works of Bell Brothers at Middlesbrough, with marked success for many years, but the died in 1906 at the comparatively early age of fifty-one, and bequeathed most of his large interests to his elder brother. Mention of the works at Middlesbrough is, however, somewhat to anticipate the sequence of events which went to the shaping of that brother's career.
Hugh Bell - as he preferred to he called - had to work hard in his youth and early manhood; it was a family tradition and he made it his own. He began his business career at eighteen, and tirelessly pursued it for nearly seventy years. He had a mind which assimilated knowledge readily, and a retentive memory. Until the time when his father, who received a baronetcy in 1895, died, in 1904, until, that is, Hugh Bell had reached late middle life, his career was overshadowed somewhat by that of his father.
During his long business apprenticeship he had, however, filled several directorates, and had occupied administrative and responsible posts with conspicuous ability and had impressed all with whom he came in contact with a sense of his great abilities and extraordinary grasp of detail. But if, from a business point of view, Hugh Bell, during Sir Lowthian Bell's lifetime, occupied a position secondary in importance to that of his distinguished father, his social life and other activities comprised many interests and made many contacts.
He served as alderman for many years on the North Riding County Council, and as High Sheriff of the County of Durham. He was three times Mayor of Middlesbrough. Like his father, who sat in Parliament for five years, he aspired to a seat in the House, and contested Middlesbrough in the Conservative interest in 1892, but was defeated. He was a lifelong and militant Free Trader, and severed his connection with the Conservative Party soon after the Tariff reform movement of the early years of the present century was inaugurated by Mr. Joseph Chamberlain.
Later on, being an equally convinced and militant Unionist, he severed the official connection he had formed with the Liberal Party in which interest he had fought, as a Liberal Free Trader, the historic election for the City of London, on the occasion in 1910 when Balfour, defeated at East Manchester, was elected by a huge majority, to represent the Metropolis.
Of late years Sir Hugh Dell had been Chairman of the Cobden Club. In 1906 he was created Lord Lieutenant of the North Riding of Yorkshire, and he was also Deputy Lieutenant of the County of Durham. He received, honoria causa, degrees in Laws from the Universities of Oxford, Leeds, Sheffield, and Durham, and was on the Senate of the latter University, while for many years he was Chairman of Council of Armstrong College, Newcastle.
He was also on the Board of the Imperial College of Science and Technology, and had served on that of the National Physical Laboratory.
In 1918 he had conferred upon him, in. recognition of distinguished civilian services during the war, the Companionship of the Bath. His wife, Lady Florence Bell, was a Dame of the Order of the British Empire.
It was, however, in connection with the iron and steel industries and the great chemical enterprises with which Sir Hugh Bell was associated that his influence and his abilities were chiefly exercised. The story of the opening up of the Cleveland iron ore deposits and of the subsequent rapid growth of the town of Middlesbrough and the surrounding neighbourhood has been told over and over again. It will suffice here to recall that as far back as 1844, and conjointly with the prosecution of his numerous other interests, Isaac Lowthian Bell and h1s two brothers, Thomas and John, had established the firm of Bell Brothers, had leased a blast-furnace at Wylam-on-Tyne, and had commenced to experiment with charges of the local Cleveland ores.
Ten years later they founded the Clarence Works at Middlesbrough, deriving their ore supplies from Normanby. A sharp tussle ensued with the rival firm of Bolckow, Vaughan and Co., which took the form of a struggle for the possession of the means of access to the ore-field, which the latter sought to monopolise. This led at first to the promotion of rival railway lines, but eventually to compromise and agreement.
Secure in the possession of iron ore mines, collieries, lime stone quarries, and means of transport, the firm of Bell Brothers started to make not only pig iron, but steel as well, and eventually having amalgamated with the firm of Dorman Long and Co., a great new steel works was built by the conjoint interests at Port Clarence.
In all the pioneer work and the negotiations involved in the establishment of these new industries and their subsequent development, Sir Hugh Bell played a Leading part, and it was the Bell wealth which rendered the enterprise possible.
At the time of his father's death, Sir Hugh became chairman of Bell Brothers, and in all further transformations and combinations of the various interests involved he retained a seat on the board and took an active part in the developments.
He was also a director of Brunner Mond and Co., Ltd., which had acquired from the firm of Bell Brothers the works they had established in Middlesbrough for the manufacture of soda.
From the time of his succession to the baronetcy in 1904, Sir Hugh Bell took and maintained a prominent position in the iron, steel, and coal industries of the country, and in the various associations, commercial and technical, devoted to their advancement. Almost his earliest public appearance in these capacities was as President of the Iron and Steel Institute, which he was invited to become in 1907. The scholarly nature of the Presidential Address which he delivered on that occasion received instant recognition and appreciation.
To the "Proceedings" of that Institute he contributed several papers of a high antiquarian interest, while he devoted much of his time to the work of the Institute itself and attended constantly its Council and Committee meetings. Both as a writer and as a speaker, he was indeed singularly gifted. He possessed a delicate, if at times trenchant, wit, and was himself an exponent of the sturdy individualism which he at all times advocated.
He made at the Spring meeting of the Institute of Metals as recently as last March a typically delightful speech, in which he once again made a declaration of his life-long principles which comprised an abounding faith in Free Trade and an intense dis like of Government interference in industrial matters. He was, indeed, always innately intolerant of opposition, and skilled in subduing or countering it, and while to those whom he liked ho was a warm friend and a steady and generous supporter, he was apt to conceive and cherish deep antipathies which he seldom, if ever, abandoned. His energy was boundless and his capacity for taking pains amounted to genius.
Amongst his manifold business activities, Sir Hugh Bell was chairman of Horden Collieries, Ltd., of Pearson and Dorman, Ltd., and of the Channel Steel Company, Ltd.
He was a director of Dorman, Long and Co., Ltd., of the Forth Bridge Railway Company, of Great Eastern Train Ferries, Ltd., and of the London and North-Eastern Railway, of which he had likewise been chairman.
He was also a director of the Wilsons and North-Eastern Shipping Company, and of the Yorkshire Insurance Company, Ltd.
He was an active member of the governing body of the National Federation of Iron and Steel Manufacturers and Chairman of its Statistical Committee.
He was twice married. His first wife, Mary, the daughter of the late John Sheild, of Newcastle, to whom he was married in 1867, bore him two children, Gertrude Lowthian Bell, the distinguished Persian scholar and Oriental Secretary to the High Commissioner for Iraq, who died in 1926, and Lieut.-Colonel Maurice Hugh Lowthian Bell, C.M.G. , who succeeds to the baronetcy.
His second wife was Florence, the daughter of the late Sir Joseph Olliffe, M. D. She was a woman of brilliant attainments, whose death after a married life of over fifty-four years, affected him profoundly.
1931 Obituary [2]
Sir HUGH BELL, the oldest Original Member of the Institute, died in London, after a brief illness, on June 29, 1931, and so passed one of the most notable, and most lovable, leaders of British metallurgy.
Born at Walker-on-Tyne on February 10, 1844, he was the elder son of Sir I. Lowthian Bell, the great iron-master, so long acknowledged to be the leading authority on the reactions of the blast furnace. Sir Hugh was educated at Murchiston House School, Edinburgh, and at the age of fifteen was sent fora year to Paris to study under Deville, and later went to Gottingen to continue his studies under Miller. He thus acquired some knowledge of science, and of foreign languages and ideas which were of great advantage in his later life.
His practical business career commenced at the early age of eighteen, and continued for nearly seventy years. Until his younger brother Charles died in 1906 they were closely associated, Hugh as the business man, Charles being chiefly connected with the technical side.
From about 1880 the whole control of Port Clarence was in Sir Hugh's hands. He had many other business interests as the years passed, and was intimately connected with the great firm of Dorman Long & Co., of which he was Chairman, and in whose interests, when over eighty years of age, he went out to Australia to attend the laying of the foundation stone of the great Sydney bridge. He was for many years a director of the London and North-Eastern Railway.
Few men served on more boards of directors than Sir Hugh, and his energy and experience did much to assure the success of undertakings with which he was connected. His business preoccupations did not prevent him from taking a leading part in many forms of public service. He was thrice Mayor of Middlesbrough, was a Deputy-Lieutenant, and also High Sheriff for the county of Durham, a member of the North Riding County Council and a county and borough magistrate. He was keenly, interested in education, and was a Member of Council of the Armstrong College. He devoted much attention to the Free Library of Middlesbrough, and to higher education in the town and district. He was a prominent, and very highly esteemed member of the Iron and Steel Institute, being Past President and Bessemer Gold Medallist of the Institute.
He was twice married ; first to Mary Shield of Newcastle, who had two children, the late Gertrude Lowthian Bell, the distinguished Eastern traveller and Persian scholar, and Maurice Hugh, who succeeds to the baronetcy.
Sir Hugh's second wife was Florence Olliffe, who had three children; she possessed remarkable ability, and her death, after fifty-four years of happy companionship, affected Sir Hugh very deeply. He received many honorific distinctions from English universities and other learned and scientific bodies, and was well known as a thoughtful, witty, and delightful public speaker. In March last, at the Annual Dinner of the Institute, members were charmed by his eloquence. He lived and died a convinced Free-Trader; he expressed the wish that he might live to be ninety, to be present at the opening of the Sydney bridge— but this was not to be. Great as were the abilities of Sir Hugh, and great as was his commercial and public influence, the memory of him, in the minds of those who knew him best, will be rather that of a genial host, a good friend with a kindly heart, a clear head, and one who gave a straight opinion. When he visited our home the big dog made few friends, but his head was soon resting on Sir Hugh's knee; and four children, at first inclined to be shy, were soon laughing happily with him. It is such men, of real greatness and human sympathy, whose memory lingers with fragrance in the hearts of those they leave behind. T. TURNER.
1931 Obituary [3]
SIR HUGH BELL, Bart, C.B., D.C.L., LL.D., died at his London residence after but a few days' illness, on June 29, 1931; he was eighty-seven years old.
Born at Walker-on-Tyne on February 10, 1844, Thomas Hugh Bell was the elder son of Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, and a grandson of Thomas Bell of Lowhurst, Cumberland. His early education commenced at a private school near his home, and was continued at Murchiston House School, Edinburgh. At the age of fifteen (1859) he was sent to Paris, where he studied chemistry at the Sorbonne under Saint-Claire Devils. Thence he passed on to Gottingen, where he continued his studies under Friedrich Willer and Stein.
He returned home in 1862 when eighteen years of age. It was during his residence abroad that he acquired that fluency in French and German which he exhibited so often later in speeches in both languages.
Soon after his return from abroad he entered the Clarence Iron Works, in which, together with his brother, Mr. Charles Lowthian Bell (who died in 1906), he was associated with his father. The Clarence Works had been commenced in 1853 with the construction of three open-top blast-furnaces, and much of the pioneer work on the improvement of blast-furnace practice at various times originated there.
In 1923 the works were taken over by Dorman, Long & Co., Ltd., together with the North-Eastern Steel Co., Ltd., Sir B. Samuelson & Co., Ltd. (both at Middlesbrough), and the Carlton Iron Co., Ltd. Bolckow, Vaughan & Co., Ltd., joined the group by fusion in 1929. For many years Sir Hugh was vice- chairman of Dorman, Long & Co., Ltd., and on the death of Sir Arthur Dorman, on February 12, 1931, he was appointed chair- man, and continued in that capacity until the end.
In addition to his other activities, Sir Hugh was chairman of the Horden Collieries, Ltd., and of Pearson and Dorman Long, Ltd., proprietors of Kentish collieries, and a director of the London and North-Eastern Railway Co., of the Yorkshire Insurance Co., and of several other concerns.
By the death of Sir Hugh Bell the Iron and Steel Institute loses one of its most distinguished members; further, Sir Hugh was one of the two remaining Original Members, having taken up membership in 1869. He was elected a Member of Council in 1905, and occupied the Presidential Chair from 1907 to 1910, a period of three years instead of the customary two, owing to the fact that Lord Merthyr, then President-Elect, found himself unable, at the last minute, to take office. Sir Hugh was one of the trustees of the Bessemer Medal Fund, and in 1926 was himself the recipient of the Bessemer Gold Medal, the highest honour in the power of the Iron and Steel Institute to bestow, the first of which had been presented to his distinguished father, Sir Lowthian Bell, in 1874.
In 1908 he obtained, as a gift from himself, a grant from the Royal College of Heralds of armorial bearings which have since always been borne by the Institute. Sir Hugh had been a regular attendant at the Meetings of the Institute, and his remarks were always given that close attention which they so richly merited. Several of the papers presented to the Institute by Sir Lowthian in his later years were to a great extent written in collaboration with Sir Hugh, and, indeed, recorded work very largely carried out by the latter. Only one paper was contributed to the Institute's Proceedings by Sir Hugh in his own name; it was entitled "Notes on a Bloom of Roman Iron found at Corstopitum (Corbridge)," and was presented at the Annual Meeting held in London in May, 1912.
In his social life Sir Hugh had many interests. He served for many years as an alderman on the North Riding County Council, and as High Sheriff of the County of Durham. He was three times Mayor of Middlesbrough. In the field of politics, he con- tested Middlesbrough in 1892, and one of the seats in the City of London in 1910, but was defeated on both occasions.
In 1906 he was created Lord Lieutenant of the North Riding of Yorkshire, and was also Deputy Lieutenant of the County of Durham. He received, honoris cause, degrees in Laws from Oxford, Leeds, Sheffield and Durham Universities. He was on the Senate of the latter University, and Chairman of Council of Armstrong College, Newcastle; he was on the Board of the Imperial College of Science and Technology, and had served on that of the National Physical Laboratory.
In 1918, in recognition of distinguished civilian services rendered during the War, the Companionship of the Bath was conferred upon him. His wife, Lady Florence Bell, was a Dame of the Order of the British Empire.
Sir Hugh was twice married. His first wife, Mary, the daughter of the late John Shield, of Newcastle, to whom he was married in 1867, bore him two children, Gertrude Lowthian Bell, the renowned Persian scholar and Oriental Secretary to the High Commissioner of Iraq, who died in 1926, and Lieut.-Colonel Maurice Hugh Lowthian Bell, C.M.G., who succeeds to the baronetcy. His second wife was Florence, the daughter of the late Sir Joseph 011iffe, M.D.; her death, after a married life of over fifty-four years, had affected him profoundly.
As noted above, Sir Hugh Bell was an Original Member of the Institute, having been elected at the first meeting on September 22, 1869.
1931 Obituary[4]
"THE LATE SIR HUGH BELL, BART.
Bv the death of Sir Hugh Bell, the second baronet, at an advanced age on Monday last, at his London house, England has lost a highly gifted personality— a man who in all this country’s industrial and business circles commanded the confidence of everyone by reason of his distinguished achievements and optimistic disposition. Nor were the friends he made throughout the course of his long life of service limited to this country alone; his name was well known and rightly esteemed in foreign countries. He combined undoubted scientific ability with keen business acumen and with a wide knowledge of the industrial and commercial world. To the end of his life he remained an accomplished speaker, and his discourses at various functions—at the meetings of the Iron and Steel Institute, for example—were always listened to with marked attention and interest.
Sir Hugh was born on February 10, 1844, at Walker-on-Tyne. He was the grandson of Mr. Thomas Bell, who early in the nineteenth century migrated from Carlisle to the North-East Coast, and eventually became partner in the firm of Messrs. Losh, Wilson and Bell, iron manufacturers, of Walker. Sir Hugh was the elder son of Sir Lowthian Bell, Bart., who founded the firm of Messrs. Bell Brothers and put down, later, the Clarence Iron Works, Middlesbrough, for smelting Cleveland ironstone—works which rapidly increased in capacity and became in succeeding years one of the most important steel works in England. Sir Hugh was educated at Merchiston Castle School, Edinburgh, and in 1859 was sent to the Sorbonne, Paris, where he studied chemistry under the late Professor Henri Sainte-Claire-Deville. Finally, he passed on to Gottingen University, and returned home in the autumn of 1862, when 18 years of age. Soon afterwards he entered the Clarence Works, in which, together with his brother, Mr. Charles Lowthian Bell, who died in 1906, he was associated with his father, Sir Lowthian, in actively developing the manufacture of iron and steel. It is interesting to mention at this point of our memoir that a large bed of rock salt was discovered in the early ’sixties of last century in the Middlesbrough district, at a depth of about 1,000 ft. A method of extracting the salt by flooding with fresh water and pumping up the brine was introduced in the ’eighties by Messrs. Bell Brothers, the firm thus adding the manufacture of salt to their metallurgical specialities. This line of activity has continued in the district ever since.
The Clarence Works were commenced in 1853 with the construction of three open-top blast furnaces, 47 ft. 10 in. in height, a large proportion of the pioneer work for the improvement of blast-furnace practice at different times being originated at the Clarence Works. The plant gradually’increased in scope in the following years, and the works were taken over, in 1923, by Messrs. Dorman, Long and Company, Limited, together with the plant and properties of Messrs. The North-Eastern Steel Company, Limited; Messrs. Sir B. Samuelson and Company, Limited — both at Middlesbrough — and Messrs. The Carlton Iron Company, Limited, Ferry Hill, Co. Durham. The works and properties of Messrs. Bolckow, Vaughan and Company, Limited, were added to the group by fusion in 1929. For many years Sir Hugh acted as vice-chairman of Messrs. Dorman, Long and Company, Limited, and on the death, on February 12, last, of Sir Arthur Dorman, he was appointed chairman, and remained in that capacity until the end. In addition to his other activities, Sir Hugh was chairman of Messrs. Horden Collieries, Limited; chairman of Messrs. Pearson and Dorman Long, Limited, proprietors of Kentish collieries; a director of the London and North Eastern Railway Company, of the Yorkshire Insurance Company, and of several other concerns.
By the death of Sir Hugh the Iron and Steel Institute loses one of its two remaining original members, who took up their membership in 1869. Sir Hugh acted as President of the Institute for a period of three years instead of the customary two years, namely, from 1907 to 1910, owing to the fact that Sir William Lewis—later, Lord Merthyr of Senghenydd—who had been appointed presidentelect, found himself compelled, at the last moment, to relinquish the office. Sir Hugh, who was for many, years one of the trustees of the Bessemer Medal Fund, regularly attended the meetings of the Institute and was always listened to with pleasure, his remarks being invariably courteous and to the point. During the latter period of his father’s life—Sir Lowthian Bell, it will be recalled, died in 1904—Sir Hugh acted as his right-hand man. Several of the papers which in his later years his distinguished parent contributed to the Iron and Steel Institute were to a great extent written in collaboration with his no less distinguished son; moreover, these contributions recorded experiments carried out in a large measure by the latter. In his own name Sir Hugh contributed only one paper to the Institute’s proceedings. This was entitled “ Notes on a Bloom of Roman Iron found at Corstopitum (Corbridge),” and was presented at the annual meeting held in London in May, 1912. In his contribution Sir Hugh gave a description of one of the largest masses of Roman wrought iron ever found in England. This had been unearthed in 1909 during the exploration of the Romano-British site of Corstopitum, near the modern Corbridge, Northumberland.
In simple justice to Sir Hugh Bell it should be stated that he would have graced any position in life. Had he embraced a Parliamentary career he might have been nominated to the Cabinet. At all events, taking into consideration his business capacity, his wide experience, his command of foreign languages, his high literary attainments, facility of speech and knowledge of men, he would certainly have rendered eminent service to the Empire as a legislator at Westminster, whilst still continuing to give the benefit of his advice and experience to the various industries with which his name was so intimately connected. He did, in fact, contest a seat for the House of Commons on two different occasions—first as a Unionist at Middlesbrough in 1892, and a second time as a Liberal in the City of London, but was not elected in either constituency. Local affairs, on the other hand, claimed much of his attention. He was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of the North Riding of Yorkshire in 1906, and was Chairman of the Tees Conservancy Commissioners for a very long period. He was also an alderman of the North Riding County Council, a Middlesbrough borough magistrate, and was Mayor of Middlesbrough in 1874, 1883, and 1910. Throughout his life, Sir Hugh was a great traveller, and as recently as 1924, although he was then 80 years of age, he undertook the long voyage to Australia, along with the late Sir Arthur Dorman, in order to be present at the laying of the foundation stone of Sydney Harbour Bridge, the contract for which had been secured by his firm, Messrs. Dorman, Long and Company, Limited. It was his ambition to return to Sydney next year to attend the opening ceremony of the bridge, but this, his last ambition, he has failed to realise.
Unlike many men in his sphere, Sir Hugh was an ardent free-trader. A possible explanation of this attitude on his part may perhaps be found in what we may be allowed to term his “internationalism in the matter of trade,” a self-interested one, as he himself admitted it to be. In this connection we may recall that in his speech at the Iron and Steel Institute dinner, held on May 14, 1909, he stated he had never been able to feel any jealousy of the prosperity of his neighbour. Under whatever sky his neighbour first saw the light, and whether he were an Englishman, a Scotsman, a Welshman, a Frenchman or a German, he was content to see this neighbour of his enjoying prosperity, and his content, he regretted to add, was based upon nothing but the purest selfishness, for he believed that if his neighbour were successful, his (Sir Hugh’s) pros perity could not fail to be increased by that very fact. Unfortunately, trade between nations does not always appear to work out on this system.
Sir Hugh was for several years chairman of the Statistical Committee of the National Federation of Iron and Steel Manufacturers; he was also an original member of the Institute of Metals, a member of the Board of Governors of the Imperial College of Science and Technology, and a member of the Council of the Federation of British Industries. He was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1918, and held the degrees of D.C.L., Durham University, and of LL.D., Leeds, Oxford, and Sheffield Universities. The Iron and Steel Institute awarded him the Bessemer Medal in 1926.
Sir Hugh is succeeded by his son, Lieut.-Colonel Maurice Hugh Lowthian Bell, C.M.G., T.D., who has also taken up his father's business activities. This brief notice would be incomplete were we to make no mention of Sir Hugh Bell's gifted wife, Lady Bell, who passed away on May 16th, 1930, and of his talented daughter, the late Miss Gertrude Bell. Lady Bell was the authoress of a number of novels and plays, both in English and French, written for children, also of plays which have been produced at London theatres. Miss Gertrude Bell, after occupying various important Government positions in Eastern Countries, was appointed, in 1920, Oriental Secretary to the High Commissioner of Iraq, where her untimely end occurred in July, 1926."