After taking a fatal dose of sleeping pills, Bell died on July 12, 1926, in Baghdad. In her biography, Howell observes that Bell had sent him a note the day before she died, asking him to look after her dog Tundra 'in case anything happened to her'. Circa. Bell also maintained a vast correspondence during this period, which was eventually compiled and published in 1927. Her close colleagues had moved on. She was aged about twenty years, and was an excellent young lady. Yes, she could be vain; yes, she was privileged; and yes she thrived on drama - but she was genuinely out of the ordinary, and the manner of her death was avoidable. In 1914, she wrote of. Gertrude Bell followed where her curiosity led in ways no woman had before. The worst-case scenario for me is if Gertrude Bell's step-mother knew that she was probably going back to Baghdad to die, or even tacitly encouraged her to do so rather than her dying of cancer at home in England - and then kept that knowledge from her father. Yet, just lately, I find myself being drawn again and again to read about the circumstances of her death. So she knew that being exceptional doesn't change the over-arching culture one is in. Gertrude Bell: The Founder of Modern Day Iraq. 7. Personally, I think Bell got shunted aside by the countries she served, and by the people she trusted - and, for reasons perhaps of a sense of social obligation, she didn't want to bother her family directly with her pain and so she put literal distance between them. It’s an intriguing story … and we have her letters, Gertrude Bell, Photographer - from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea. Her 'work' had rarely been paid work, and the archaeological expeditions and the photographic travels were privately funded. Yet that's not my job either. The British intelligence bureau in Cairo hired her as an advisor on Arabia. Bell was buried in Baghdad’s Bad al Sharji district. I think her last journey was, like most other things she did, thought about, risk-laden, and intentional. There was nowhere to go, so I think he did commit suicide. It's perhaps illuminating how a woman of such rare talent and such vivacity became so dispensable so quickly once family wealth and the adventures faded, and the spectre of cancer came calling. I think one can say that fairly surely.” Bell died alone a decade later in Baghdad at … Gertrude Bell's Christmas in Bethlehem, 1899, 'It [Bethlehem] was politics etched into the stones of a built landscape; it was 'tribal'; it was staring Bell in the face. Between visits to the Middle East, Gertrude Bell’s experience of war work in the south of England and in France was brief, but formative. Link to forthcoming book added 13th Oct 2018. Learn more about Gertrude B. Elion, the female scientist who helped develop drugs to treat diseases such as malaria and AIDS, at Biography.com. Fluent in Persian and Arabic, Bell worked for the British government in Cairo during World War I. Lawrence, in attempts to destabilise the Ottoman Empire and encourage an Arab uprising. However, some say that she had accidentally overdosed on sleeping pills. British forces eventually captured Baghdad in 1917. Gertrude Bell led some impressive expeditions across the desert landscapes of the Middle East, but rarely was she without her baggage animals or a cart to carry her dinner service, provisions and equipment, and a servant (or two) to prepare her meals. Gertrude Stein was an American author and poet best known for her modernist writings, extensive art collecting and literary salon in 1920s Paris. Letters from Baghdad: The Documentary Very nice of Gertrude.'. Indeed, she didn't want to change anything about sex qualifications back home - she was against women being given the vote, for example - and was seemingly only pro social change whilst in the Middle East. Her archaeological contributions were significant as well. Her writings on her experiences across the globe informed British audiences about the distant parts of their empire. The constraints of western clothing and the framework of the western working day - which we seem to take everywhere with us, at least partly -  make everything seem ten times worse. She pushed herself with extreme challenges which would have led to intense adrenaline highs. As academic institutions did not support women in archaeology at that time, Bell had to organize and finance her own expeditions and collaborate with professionals for her work to be recognized. The colleagues who had shown her loyalty had moved on and been replaced; and I think she was lonely, worried about the future, and forlorn. In her final years, Bell kept herself busy in archaeology, but she slowly sank into depression and illness. Dobbs, his replacement, did not need her counsel. Bell had recently been home to England, and the winds of change regarding the family's fortunes were palpable. In 1899, Bell returned to the Middle East and visited Palestine and Syria, touching off a period of sustained travel there and in Asia and Europe. Lawrence then kept a fairly low profile for a while, partly due to imposed changes to his military career, but in the years between 1922 and 1926 he had been hard at work on a corrected version of Pillars which was intended to reach a wider audience - an abridged version titled Revolt in the Desert. Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell, CBE (14 July 1868 – 12 July 1926) was an English writer, traveller, political officer, administrator, spy and archaeologist who explored, mapped, and became highly influential to British imperial policy-making due to her knowledge and contacts, built up through extensive travels in Greater Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Arabia. The heat in the Baghdad summer would have been stifling. 3. But I think she was quite conflicted on the fairness of this, and 'performed gender' with class concerns being her driving force. His role in British policy-making exposed Ger… And I think I've finally found the connection that was missing. Into this wealthy family, in 1868, arrived Gertrude. He later claimed it was for this reason that he didn't look after the dog (he knew how to - he was a dog lover himself), and eventually Marie had it transported back to Bell's parents. They would only serve to pass the time, and leave as little profit as before ... it's a bore being a woman when you're in Arabia'. Twice named prime minister of Great Britain, he helped to defeat Nazi Germany in World War II. I think I know why this is, and it certainly is personal - this year I'll be the age she was when she died. James Buchan on the extraordinary life of Gertrude Bell… The death of Gertrude Bell on the 12th July 1926, from an overdose of 'sleeping pills' in her bedroom in Baghdad, is now well documented in her biographies, and in more recent years it has certainly been fairly openly discussed in terms of suicide. After taking a fatal dose of sleeping pills, Bell died on July 12, 1926, in Baghdad. It was reported that she had asked her maid to wake her - no suspicion of suicide was to attach to Bell, whatever her intention, nor to Marie. She was unlucky again, some years later, when she fell deeply in love with the already (and slightly unhappily) married Major Dick Doughty-Wylie. Gertrude Bell’s most popular book is A Woman in Arabia: The Writings of the Queen of the Desert. If you appreciated reading this article, please help to support this website by making a small donation. Her family's fortune had started to decline due to the onset of post-World War I strikes. As a British political officer in the Middle East, largely unexplored by the West at that time, exploration was a necessity in her work. She spent the years before World War I traveling around the world and developing a passion for archaeology. Gertrude Bell was born in Washington, England, in the northeastern county of Durham. Mark Sykes used language about her that could only have been applied to a woman: 'Confound the silly chattering windbag of conceited, gushing, flat-chested, man-woman, globe-trotting, rump-wagging, blethering ass!' Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell, CBE (14 July 1868 – 12 July 1926) was an English writer, traveller, political officer, administrator, spy and archaeologist who explored, mapped, and became highly influential to British imperial policy-making due to her knowledge and contacts, built up through extensive travels in Greater Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Arabia. Though the famous bell within Alice rang for the genius of Gertrude and others, she had her own genius, revealed in these chatty, fascinating letters written during the twenty years after Gertrude's death in 1946. He visited her (without his wife) in 1913 and … Will Martin answered . Bell's loss of privilege and the rise of Lawrence. But the complicated nation-builder from a British steelmaking background was so much more than that: a fearless, turn-of-the-century mountaineer conquering Alpine peaks; a desert explorer and cartographer; a spy, wartime political operative and soldier; a writer and an archaeologist who spoke six languages, including Arabic. During the spring of 1900 she went to visit t… Bell was born on 14 July 1868 in Washington New Hall – now known as Dame Margaret Hall – in Washington, County Durham, England to a family whose wealth ensured her education and enabled her travels. Her last words in writing to the woman she called 'mother' were: 'There is the lunch bell and I'm dreadfully in need of some iced soda water. Her 58th birthday was looming, and the well of validation was running dry. A barbiturate, it was used at the time as a sedative, as well as an anti-convulsant and in pain relief. If letter writing is a lost art, Staying on Alone is a measure of what has been lost. Author's edits: minor typos corrected 17th June 2017, 10th October 2017 and 1st May 2018. Distance was the metaphor of her life, from her early 20s onward. Before the Storm, 1914 Poster published by the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee, London Gertrude Bell died on July 12, 1926 at the age of 57. Fine Dining in the Desert with Gertrude Bell. Bell remained in Baghdad after Faisal's 1921 ascension, working to fund and construct an archaeological museum. I've studied Gertrude Bell's work for over 25 years. She'd felt the casual, cold hand of misogyny even when at her most influential and hard-working. After the war, she was very involved in the political negotiations that divided the Arab world into new countries and established British political influence in the region.

She traveled the world, gained enormous power and even helped build a country from scratch. But either way, as Werr points out, "The Gertrude Bell story is definitely worthy of a film. The life of Gertrude Bell, who spied for Britain during the First World War and helped establish modern Iraq, will be revealed in a new documentary released this week. There are suggestions that Bell - a very heavy smoker - had, in her final visit home to England in early 1926, been diagnosed with lung cancer. Physically, it seemed that she could do everything, and easily. Indeed post-WW1 labour relations were one of the subjects mentioned in her last letter to her father, with the General Strike of May 1926 still very fresh in their minds. In the late 19 th and early 20 th century, Gertrude’s Grandfather, Sir Lowthian Bell, and Gertrude’s father, Sir Hugh Bell, commissioned noted Arts and Crafts architects to build Rounton Grange, and the houses of the surrounding village of East Rounton.. The death of Gertrude Bell on the 12th July 1926, from an overdose of 'sleeping pills' in her bedroom in Baghdad, is now well documented in her biographies, and in more recent years it has certainly been fairly openly discussed in terms of suicide. In 1899, she studied Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. Thursday & Friday, 12 & 13 September 2013, 9.30am to 5.30pm/9.30am to 4.00pm Venue: The British Academy, 10-11 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH. In 1899 Bell studied Arabic in Jerusalem. Her last words to her father were also of the heat: 'Darling, I must stop now; summer does not conduce to the writing of very long letters. She asked both to divorce their wives in order to marry her. And she'd seen T E Lawrence - a man 20 years her junior, born outside of her privilege - match her fame following what was only a very limited publication in 1922 of The Seven Pillars Of Wisdom about his role in the Arab Revolt during WW1, subsequent to the sensationalising of his exploits by journalist Lowell Thomas. ‌World War I had an enormous impact on Gertrude Bell, changing her life dramatically. Doughty-Wylie was killed during WW1 at Gallipoli, apparently causing her massive heartache. James Buchan describes her as 'the greatest woman mountaineer of her age'. Bell would go on to attend Oxford University, where she studied history. Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell was born on July 14, 1868, in Durham, England. Gertrude Bell return to Britain in 1925, where she faced family problems and ill health. We strive for accuracy and fairness. Gertrude Bell - in Search of the ‘Real Woman’, Short review of the film 'Queen of the Desert’. In some classes, Gertrude and the other women even had to sit with their backs to the lecturer! How someone died is not always relevant to how they lived; but in the case of Gertrude Bell, I believe that the circumstances of her death tell us a great deal about how she felt about her own life - which in turn casts light on a whole host of historical contingencies of that era, not least the impacts of class and sex, during a time when the Middle East was being carved up and re-plated for Western consumption. Did he have suicidal intentions of his own that day? With her vast knowledge of the Middle East and her fluency in Arabic and Persian, she became directly involved what was considered the political reinvention of Mesopotamia. Bell's associated fatigue and despondency. Her day to day life was labelling exhibits in her museum - quite the come-down for the trained archaeologist and the brilliant intellect upon which others had previously relied. Sources and acknowledgments: Ella Ravilious's blog for V&A on Gertrude Bell at Hatra; James Buchan's 'Miss Bell's lines in the sand' in The Guardian 12 March 2003; Pat Yale's 'Gertrude of Arabia: the great adventurer may finally get her museum' in The Guardian 9 August 2016; Janet Wallach 1996 Desert Queen - the extraordinary life of Gertrude Bell: adventurer, adviser to kings, ally of Lawrence of Arabia; Georgina Howell 2006 Daughter of the Desert - the remarkable life of Gertrude Bell; Jeremy Wilson 1989 Lawrence of Arabia - the authorised biography of T E Lawrence; Jeremy Johns [undated, poss circa 1989] unpublished address on Gertrude Bell and the Gertrude Bell Archive at Newcastle University, given to the Society of Antiquaries of London;  H V F Winstone 1980 Gertrude Bell. She wrote a book about her experiences called Persian Pictures, A Book of Travelsthat was published in 1894. "At dusk the mist hangs in long white bands over the water; the twilight fades and the lights of the town shine out on either bank, with the river, dark and smooth and full of mysterious reflections, like a road of triumph through the midst." Further correction 13th Oct 2018 - thanks to sharped-eyed Cathy McSweeney. I never felt especially attracted or connected on any personal level to the woman who manifests herself in her writings, but was always fascinated by the richness of her archaeological and photographic output and how that legacy was handled. Gertrude Bell was also listed as an explorer and archaeologist among her many achieved duties. Her personality was characterised by energy, intellect, and a thirst for adventure that shaped her path in life. It is unknown whether the overdose was an intentional suicide or accidenta… Her father was Sir Hugh Bell, a baronet who was a sheriff and a justice of the peace before joining the family manufacturing firm, Bell Brothers, and gaining a … She grew up in a wealthy family in Redcar, a Yorkshire town, in a home built by her father, businessman and industrialist Sir Thomas Hugh Bell. Bell was very careful about that, to her immense credit. Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell CBE (14 July 1868 – 12 July 1926) was a British writer, traveller, political analyst, administrator in Arabia, and an archaeologist who mapped and identified Anatolian and Mesopotamian ruins. She contributed to the construction of the Iraqi state in 1921, as well as the National Museum of Iraq. There are two ways of profitable travel in Arabia. The intersections of the lives of Bell and Lawrence have been written about, but as far as I'm aware only in terms of their supposed spying activities, so it's interesting to consider how Bell's last year and her death intersected with Lawrence's resurgence as the character in the Arab Revolt. Bell died of an overdose of sleeping pills on the night of July 11-12, 1926, at her home in Baghdad. Recommended book “Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations” by Georgina Howell . And the other is to ride swiftly through the country with your compass in hand, for the map's sake and for nothing else, I might be able to do that over a limited space of time, but I am not sure. It's almost as though she were only 'free' to be exceptional, to have the limelight, to be an archaeologist, and to challenge the social mores of the time, when she were situated outside of England and in the Middle East, where women arguably had even less status than they did in England. Gertrude Bell was a British writer, archaeologist and political officer best known for helping to establish modern Iraq after World War I. Her family's fortune had started to decline due to the onset of post-World War I strikes. Gertrude drinks poison. Learn More in these related Britannica articles: National Museum of Iraq Cornwallis had effectively abandoned her to her maid and her allobarbital. In 1892, Bell graduated with honors from Oxford and shortly thereafter traveled to Tehran, Iran, where her uncle, Sir Frank Lascelles, was serving as British minister. This biography has been revised and updated for a new generation and a new political reality. Being a woman in a man's world was no picnic. If you do fall ill, it's really hard to recover if there are times of the day where you never feel cool; and it's hard to sleep and feel properly rested. She had always been able to solve a problem, to punctuate boredom, to remove herself from awkward situations, to find a better place, by going on a journey. Finally, on July 12 th, 1926, Gertrude Bell passed away. When she recovered, she heard that her younger brother Hugo had died of typhoid. Gertrude Bell’s brilliant career at Oxford, where she took a first in history in 1887, was followed by some time spent in Tehrān, where her On both occasions she passed through London and had ample opportunity to visit the Society, but there is no record in her papers that she did so. Her grandfather was the ironmaster Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, an industrialist and a Liberal Member of Parliament, in Benjamin Disraeli's second term. Some visceral experiences need to be shared and it seems she had precious few people to share anything with. Kristen Bell is an American actress known for her roles on TV's 'Veronica Mars' and in such films as 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall,' 'Couples Retreat' and 'Get Him to the Greek.'. She may have been all too aware, as her influence and privilege waned, that Lawrence's fame and career were only just starting. This article was most recently revised and updated by Chelsey Parrott-Sheffer, Research Editor. What do ineffective archaeologists want with battles! Gertrude Bell return to Britain in 1925, where she faced family problems and ill health. Young Gertrude was born in 1868 in County Durham in the North East of England. Whilst far from even approaching being poor - she left £50,000 in her will to the Baghdad Museum - she was unusually feeling a pressure to be (or be seen to be) 'salaried'. To me, she wasn't 'an Englishwoman in Iraq'. 'a profound doubt as to whether the adventure is, after all, worth the candle. Within a year Gertrude Bell was called to the Middle East to serve the British administration – where, in Baghdad, after a series of notable geo-political accomplishments, she died just a decade later by her own hand. Archaeologist, linguist, and the greatest woman mountaineer of her age, in 1921 she drew the boundaries of the country that became Iraq. ', An Archaeology of Children: finding childhoods in the past, Gertrude Bell: Love Through A Different Lens, Food in the Field: cooking and inclusive fieldwork practice, On the Incompleteness of Archaeological Narratives, Rape - the Use and Misuse of Narratives of Sexual Violence, 'A critical review of the interpretation of infant burials in Roman Britain...', 'Images and contexts of infants and infant burials...', Animal and Infant Burials on Romano-British Villas, Gertrude Bell - More Than A 'Free Booting Scholar', Gertrude Bell, Photographer - Jerusalem to Dead Sea, Gertrude Bell's Christmas in Bethlehem 1899, Gertrude Bell - in Search of the 'Real Woman', Gertrude Bell 1914-15 - Christmas in France, a New Year in Purgatory, The Intriguing Roman Villa at Norton Disney, Three Burials at Norton Disney & the End of Roman Villas, Romano-British Villas & Social Construction of Space, Animal and Infant Burials in Romano-British Villas (A 'Revitalisation' Movement? And for forty more years she continued to guide her spiritual children, many of whom attained a high degree of sanctity. Her mother Mary died in 1871 after giving birth to her younger brother Maurice. John Donne, leading English poet of the Metaphysical school, is often considered the greatest loved poet in the English language. Bell wanted Doughty-Wylie to leave his wife for her, and his wife threatened suicide if he did. The death of Gertrude Bell on the 12th July 1926, from an overdose of 'sleeping pills' in her bedroom in Baghdad, is now well documented in her biographies, and in more recent years it has certainly been fairly openly discussed in terms of suicide. When did she die? She been prescribed the drug that eventually killed her, Dial (diallylbarbituric acid or allobarbital) at some point prior to her death. On 12 July 1926, Bell was discovered to have overdosed on sleeping pills. She traveled the world, gained enormous power and even helped build a country from scratch. 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