Henry Hesketh Bell

Henry Hesketh Joudou Bell was born on 17 December 1864 at Chambéry in the Savoie department of south-east France. He was the son of Henry Jean Antoine Joudou, a timber merchant, and Scotswoman Martha Bell. He had one sibling: Eléonore Marthe Joudou-Bell (1867-1951). Hesketh Bell's ancestry has been extensively researched.{{cite journal |last1=Broun |first1=James L |date= 17 March 2020 |title= The Social Origins of a Colonial Governor: The Ancestry of Sir Henry Hesketh Joudou Bell (1864–1952) |url= https://academic.oup.com/nq/advance-article/doi/10.1093/notesj/gjaa003/5809093|journal= Notes & Queries|volume=67 |pages=114–118 |doi=10.1093/notesj/gjaa003 |access-date=22 March 2020|url-access=subscription }}

Bell was privately educated in the Channel Islands, and in Paris and Brussels.{{cite web | last = KS | title = Sir Henry Hesketh Bell Collection | website = Janus | publisher = University of Cambridge | url = https://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk/db/node.xsp?id=EAD%2FGBR%2F0115%2FY3011C-N | access-date = 8 March 2020}}

In May 1882 he started work in Barbados, as third clerk in the office of the Governor of Barbados and the Leeward Islands, a post he was offered by family friend Sir William C. F. Robinson. From then on he rose through the system in the following posts:

• 1885-1889 – Grenada Inland Revenue Department
• 1890-94 – Supervisor of Customs in the Gold Coast
• Receiver General and Treasurer of the Bahamas
• 1899-1905 – Administrator Of Dominica
• 1905-08 – Commissioner (later, Governor) of the Uganda Protectorate
• 1909-11 – Governor of Northern Nigeria
• 1912-16 – Governor of the Leeward Islands
• 1916-24 – Governor of Mauritius

File:British Governor Sir Hesketh Bell with hunting trophies in Uganda, 1908 (cropped).png

In December 2007, New Vision, a Ugandan online newspaper, posted a piece entitled "Hesketh Bell's Ugandan descendants" in which 72-year old Ketty Karuyonga Bell, said to be a great-granddaughter of the former Governor, tells her story.{{cite web | last = Namubiru | first = Lydia | title = Hesketh Bell's Ugandan descendants | website = New Vision: Uganda's Leading Daily | publisher = Vision Group Uganda | url = https://www.newvision.co.ug/new_vision/news/1213817/hesketh-bell-eur-ugandan-descendants | access-date = 10 March 2020}}

Hesketh Bell, who never married, is alleged to have had a son with a MutooroOne of the Butooro people, who inhabit the Kabarole and Kasese districts of western Uganda {{cite web | title = The Batooro People & Culture | website = Uganda Travel Guide | url = http://www.ugandatravelguide.com/tooro-kingdom-culture.html | access-date = 10 March 2020}} woman, Maria Nyamuhaibona. The boy, John Dick Bell, is said to have been born on 18 December 1905. Hesketh Bell reportedly sent support for the boy, until he learned that John had had a serious accident when he was 10; support then stopped. John, who had 12 children, died of a heart attack in 1953.

Bell's many achievements in Uganda have been summarised as a teaching aid.{{cite web | last = Mubiru| first = Dr Dennis | title = What was the role of sir Hesketh bell in the development of Uganda? | website = welcome to mubula resource center of excellence | date = 31 August 2016 | url = http://mubulahistory.blogspot.com/2016/08/19-what-was-role-of-sir-hesketh-bell-in.html | access-date = 10 March 2020}}

One of the most important was a scheme for suppressing sleeping sickness, which Bell proposed in August 1907. After the Treasury authorized the funds for the work, the natives were moved from the fly-infested district on the shores of Lake Victoria to healthy locations inland. The sick were placed in segregation camps to undergo the so-called atoxyl treatment; an estimated 20,000 people were dealt with. The shores of Lake Victoria were cleared of all vegetation, thus removing the presence of the tsetse fly.{{cite book | last1 = Bell, KCMG | first = Sir H Hesketh | title = Report on the Measures Adopted for the Suppression of Sleeping Sickness in Uganda | publisher = His Majesty's Stationery Office | location = London | date = 1909}}

Hesketh Bell's vision for Uganda included major development of its railway. By 1909 to had battled hard for approval of two schemes: first, a line from Jinja, on the north shore of Lake Victoria to Kakindu and then to Lake Kioga; and, second, a direct line from Kampala to Lake Albert.{{Cite news | title = Uganda Extensions | page = 12 | newspaper = London Evening Standard | location = London | date = 19 August 1909}}

Bell retired to Cannes in 1924, but he still travelled widely. In 1925-26 he made an extensive semi-official tour of the Far East to study French and Dutch systems of colonial government. His conclusions were published as Foreign colonial administration in the Far East in 1928,{{cite book | last1 = Bell, GCMG | first = Sir Hesketh | title = Foreign colonial administration in the Far East | publisher = Edward Arnold & Co | location = London | date = 1928}} for which he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Empire Society.

During the Second World War, Bell returned to live in the Bahamas, but was a frequent visitor to London, where he was a member of the Conservative Club in St James's.In 1951, Bell’s will was signed and witnessed in Monaco, where he also had a home. In it he:

• directed that his bust, by James Alexander Stevenson,{{cite web|title=James Alexander Stevenson ARCA, FRBS|website=Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain & Ireland 1851-1951|url=https://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/person.php?id=msib2_1204245200|access-date=27 March 2020|archive-date=3 June 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200603181429/https://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/person.php?id=msib2_1204245200|url-status=dead}} be offered to the Government of Mauritius "in the hope that it may be placed in some suitable place in ‘Bell Village’" which he founded in 1915.
• bequeathed his portrait by de Laszlo to the Government of Mauritius.
• directed that his diaries and accompanying scrap-books be offered to the Trustees of the British Museum.
• bequeathed the sum of £50 to each of four godsons:
• Peter Myers of 'Greenways', Wadlands Brook Road near East Grinstead. He was Peter S F Myers, born in 1926, son of Harold Hawthorn Myers and Muriel Letitia Swinfen Eady (daughter of Charles Swinfen Eady, 1st Baron Swinfen).
• James Lightfoot of Belgrave Lodge, Belgrave Square, Monkstown, County Dublin, of whom nothing is known.
• Henry Morcom of 6 Chester Street, London SW1. He was Henry Richard Morcom (1922-2008), son of Alfred Morcom and Sylvia Millicent Birchenough (daughter of Sir John Henry Birchenough, 1st Baronet).
• Robert Hesketh Dolbey, of 37 Grosvenor Square, London W1. He was Robert Hesketh Gay Dolbey (1928-2011), son of Robert Valentine Dolbey of Sutton and Virginia Gay of Battle Mountain, Nevada.
• left £300 and his typewriter, radio, clothes and other items to The Marchesa Stella Vitelleschi of Villa Moderno, Monaco.Stella Giacinta Annabella Maria Nobili-Vitelleschi (also known as Stella Rho) was born in London on 29 September 1886. She died at 7 rue Bel Respiro, Monte Carlo, Monaco on 3 January 1975. She was a film actress, known for Vagabond Violinist (1934), The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1936) and The Naked Maja (1958). Her autobiography, Out of My Coffin, was published in London by Hurst & Blackett in 1937.
• left £1,000 and the balance of his estate to his niece, Mrs Marjorie Leonora Apperson.

Sir Henry Hesketh Joudou Bell, GCMG, who lived at 92 Redcliffe Gardens, Kensington, died at a nursing home on 1 August 1952.{{cn|date=December 2022}}

Bell's sister, Eléonore Marthe Joudou-Bell, married John Francis Scully. They had one child, registered as Marjory Léonore Scully at birth (1893), but Marjorie Leonore in the National Probate Calendar. She married twice: first, to Thomas Arthur Apperson in 1920 and, second, to Alfred Robert Llewellin-Taylour, MA, FRSA, FRGS, a barrister in 1954. When Hesketh Bell died in 1952, "Marjorie Leonora Apperson single woman" was named in his will. When she, in turn, died in 1968, her executors deposited Hesketh Bell's collection of photographs with the Royal Commonwealth Society.

Henry Bell was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1891.{{cite journal|title=Second Meeting, 23rd November 1891. Election of Fellows|year=1891|journal=Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society |series=New Series|volume=13|page=731|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.32106015214775&view=1up&seq=773}}

He was created a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG) in 1903. He was advanced to Knight Commander (KCMG) in 1908 and to Grand Knight Commander (GCMG) in the 1925 New Year Honours.{{fact|date=April 2025}}

His works included memoirs, fiction, and colonial history and administration

• 1889 – Obeah: witchcraft in the West Indies{{cite book | last1 = Bell| first1 = Hesketh J | title = Obeah: Witchcraft in the West Indies | location = Northampton | publisher = Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington Ltd | date = 1889}}
• 1893 – A Witch's Legacy{{cite book | last1 = Bell| first1 = Sir Hesketh | title = A Witch's Legacy | location = London | publisher = Sampson, Low & Co | date = 1893}}
• 1893 – The History, Trade, Resources, and present Condition of the Gold Coast Settlement{{cite journal | last1 = Bell | first1 = Sir Hesketh | title = The History, Trade, Resources, and present Condition of the Gold Coast Settlement | journal = The Journal of Commerce | location = Liverpool| date = 1893}}
• 1894 – Outlines of the Geography of the Gold Coast Colony and Protectorate. Compiled for use in the colonial schools{{cite book | last1 = Bell | first1 = Sir Hesketh | title = Outlines of the Geography of the Gold Coast Colony and Protectorate. Compiled for use in the colonial schools | location = London | publisher = Sampson, Low & Co | date = 1894}}
• 1909 – Report on the Measures Adopted for the Suppression of Sleeping Sickness in Uganda
• 1911 – Love in Black [Sketches of native life in West Africa]{{cite book | last1 = Bell | first1 = Sir Hesketh | title = Love in Black. [Sketches of native life in West Africa.] | location = London | publisher = Edward Arnold | date = 1911}}
• 1911 – Recent Progress in Northern Nigeria{{cite journal | last1 = Bell | first1 = H Hesketh | title = Recent Progress in Northern Nigeria | journal = Journal of the Royal African Society | volume = 10 | pages = 377–91 | publisher = OUP | date = July 1911| issue = 40 }}
• 1928 – Foreign colonial administration in the Far East
• 1946 – Glimpses of a Governor's Life, from diaries, letters and memoranda{{cite book | last1 = Bell | first = Sir Hesketh | title = Glimpses of a Governor's Life, from diaries, letters and memoranda | publisher = Sampson Low & Co | location = London | date = 1946}}
• 1948 – Witches & Fishes{{cite book | last1 = Bell | first = Sir Hesketh | title = Witches & Fishes ... Illustrated by Joanna Dowling | publisher = Edward Arnold & Co | location = London | date = 1948}}

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{{succession box | title=Governor of Uganda | before=Sir James Hayes Sadler | after=Sir Herbert James Read | years= 1905–1908 }}

{{succession box | title=Governor of Northern Nigeria | before= Sir Percy Girouard| after= Sir Charles Lindsay | years= 1909–1911 }}

{{succession box | title=Governor of the Leeward Islands | before=Sir Ernest Bickham Sweet-Escott | after=Sir Edward Marsh Merewether | years=1912–1916}}

{{succession box | title=Governor of Mauritius | before=Sir John Robert Chancellor | after=Sir Herbert James Read | years= 1916–1924 }}

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Category:1864 births

Category:1952 deaths

Category:Colonial Administrative Service officers

Category:Governors of Uganda

Category:Governors of British Mauritius

Category:British writers

Category:Fellows of the Royal Geographical Society

Category:Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George

Category:British governors and governors-general of Nigeria

Category:20th-century Barbadian people