Ernest Bell (activist)

Ernest Bell
A vintage photograph of a man with a full beard and moustache, wearing a polka-dotted bow tie, a high-collared shirt, and a dark suit, looking to the side with a serious expression.
Portrait from Fifty Years of Food Reform (1898)
Born8 March 1851
Hampstead, Middlesex, England
Died14 September 1933 (1933-09-15) (aged 82)
Hendon, Middlesex, England
EducationTrinity College, Cambridge (BA, 1873; MA, 1876)
Occupations
  • Publisher
  • writer
  • activist
EmployerGeorge Bell & Sons
Known forAdvocacy of animal rights, animal welfare, and vegetarianism; co-founding the League Against Cruel Sports
Spouses
Wilhelmina E. Wölfel
​
​
(m. 1875; died 1881)​
Marie Anna von Taysen
​
​
(m. 1893)​
Children1
FatherGeorge Bell
AwardsJoint recognition by 22 animal organisations (1929)
Signature

Ernest Bell (8 March 1851 – 14 September 1933) was an English publisher, writer, and activist involved in a range of humanitarian and social reform movements in the United Kingdom. He is known for his advocacy of animal rights, animal welfare, vegetarianism, and anti-vivisection causes, as well as for his involvement in organisations including the Vegetarian Society, the Humanitarian League, and the League Against Cruel Sports, which he co-founded in 1925.

Bell worked for the publishing firm George Bell & Sons, established by his father, and promoted literature on ethical, dietary, and humanitarian topics. He edited several publications, including The Animals' Friend, and contributed to a range of reform-oriented journals and pamphlets. He held long-standing leadership positions in multiple animal protection societies and was recognised in 1929 with an award jointly presented by 22 animal organisations. A committed vegetarian for most of his life, Bell supported meat-free diets on both health and ethical grounds. His legacy is reflected in the Ernest Bell Library, a collection of materials established after his death to preserve his writings and related literature on social reform.

Biography

Early life and education

Ernest Bell was born in Hampstead on 8 March 1851, the second son of the publisher George Bell and his wife, Hannah Simpson.[1] He was educated at St Paul's School, London and went on to study at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a BA in 1873 and a MA in 1876.[2] After graduating, Bell studied German in Dresden.[2]

Publishing career

Bell spent most of his adult life working for his father's publishing firm, George Bell & Sons.[2] He was among the earliest English publishers influenced by the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson.[2] In 1926, he became chairman of the company's board of directors.[2]

Animal activism

Bell joined the RSPCA in 1873.[3] From the 1890s onward, he increasingly focused on supporting vegetarian, humanitarian, and animal welfare causes.[4] He was active in both fundraising and administrative roles across numerous reform organisations.[1]

He served as Honorary Secretary of the Hampstead Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals for thirty years, and held leadership roles in several national organisations. These included Chairman of the Committee of the Anti-Vivisection Society, Chairman of the National Anti-Vivisection Society, and involvement with the Anti-Bearing Rein Association, the National Canine Defence League (now Dogs Trust), and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.[5]

In 1925, Bell co-founded the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports alongside Henry B. Amos and George Greenwood, who served as its first president.[6] In 1929, he received a joint award from 22 animal protection organisations in recognition of his work.[2]

Bell edited the Animal Life Readers, a series of school books on animals, and launched the journal The Animals' Friend, which he also edited.[3][7]

He was chairman and treasurer of the Humanitarian League for over twenty years and maintained close relationships with fellow activists, including Henry Stephens Salt and Jessey Wade.[3][8] Wade worked as Bell's secretary until his death.[8]

Vegetarianism

Bell adopted a vegetarian diet in 1874 after reading T. L. Nichols' pamphlet How to Live on Sixpence a Day.[9] In a 1925 interview, he stated that he had been a vegetarian for fifty years and attributed his continued good health to a meat-free diet. He argued that widespread adoption of vegetarianism would reduce the prevalence of chronic disease.[10]

Bell joined the Vegetarian Society and was elected a vice-president in 1896. He served as president from 1914 until his death in 1933.[3][11] He wrote the preface to E. W. Bowdich's vegetarian cookbook New Vegetarian Dishes in 1892,[12] and was a regular speaker at Vegetarian Society meetings. He stated that meat eating was unethical, and argued that animals could not achieve moral consideration or rights while they continued to be viewed as food.[13]

Personal life and death

On 10 April 1875, Bell married Wilhelmina E. Wölfel[note 1] of Dresden at St Saviour's, South Hampstead.[15] They had one daughter.[2] Wilhelmina died in 1881.[14] In 1893, Bell married Marie Anna von Taysen; they had no children.[2]

Bell was a believer that animals have souls and survive death. In his pamphlet An Afterlife for Animals he wrote about an alleged encounter with a ghost dog that had been investigated by the Society for Psychical Research.[16]

Bell died in Hendon on 14 September 1933, at the age of 82.[1] His funeral took place at Hendon Parish Church two days later and was attended by his widow, other family members, and representatives from many organisations, including the Vegetarian Society.[3] Tributes were paid to him in the publications Animal World and The Vegetarian Messenger and Health Review, as well as from Henry B. Amos and Stephen Coleridge.[17]

Legacy

A library to preserve Bell's writings known as the Ernest Bell Library, was proposed by Henry S. Salt in 1934 and was established by the executive of the Vegetarian Society in 1936. The library has more than 1,500 books, journals, magazines and newspapers.[18] It is currently cared for by The Humanitarian League, a Hong Kong–based organisation named after the original Humanitarian League.[19]

Contributions to organisations

Bell freeing a caged bird c. 1902

Bell donated a significant amount of his income to various societies throughout his life.[2] He also co-founded and worked for a number of animal and vegetarian organisations:[1][4][8]

Selected publications

"The Rights of Animals" authored by Bell in The Animals' Friend, 1894
  • The Animals' Friend (1904)
  • Christmas Cruelties (1907)
  • The Inner Life of Animals (editor, 1913)
  • Stray Thoughts About Vegetarians (1910)
  • Why Do Animals Exist? (1910)
  • Big-Game Hunting (1915)
  • The Need for Humane Education (1915)
  • In a Nutshell: Cons and Pros of the Meatless Diet (1920)
  • An After-Life for Animals (1922)
  • Speak Up for the Animals: Poems for Reading and Recitations (editor, 1923)
  • Some Social Results of the Meatless Diet (1924)
  • Bell's Joy Book (1926), Bell donated all of the profits to the Vegetarian Home for Children[2]
  • Fair Treatment for Animals (1927)
  • The Humane Diet and Common Sense (1927)
  • Proper Relationship between Men and the Other Animals (1927)
  • Superiority in the Lower Animals (1927)
  • Summer School Papers: Animal, Vegetable and General (1928)
  • The Wider Sympathy (1932)

Notes

  1. ^ Her name is also recorded as Elize Wilhelmina Wolfel.[2] amd Elise Wilhelmina.[14]

References

  1. ^ a b c d "Ernest Bell". Henry S. Salt Society. Retrieved 28 June 2020.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Smith, Virginia (22 September 2005). "Bell, Ernest (1851–1933), publisher and animal welfare campaigner". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/40996. Retrieved 25 June 2020. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
  3. ^ a b c d e "Ernest Bell, President of the Vegetarian Society". The Vegetarian Messenger and Health Review. October 1933.
  4. ^ a b Allen, Daniel; Watkins, Charles; Matless, David (April 2016). "'An incredibly vile sport': Campaigns against Otter Hunting in Britain, 1900–39" (PDF). Rural History. 27 (1): 79–101. doi:10.1017/S0956793315000175. ISSN 0956-7933.
  5. ^ May, Allyson N. (2013). The Fox-Hunting Controversy, 1781–2004: Class and Cruelty. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing. p. 73. ISBN 978-1-4094-6069-5.
  6. ^ "League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports". Hampstead and St. John's Wood Advertiser. 30 July 1925. p. 3. A new League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports has just been formed, with Sir Greenwood as President, Mr Ernest Bell hon. treasurer, and Mr. H. B. Amos, as secretary. (subscription required)
  7. ^ Li, Chien-hui (2017). Mobilizing Traditions in the First Wave of the British Animal Defense Movement. London: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 195. ISBN 9781137526519.
  8. ^ a b c Edmundson, John (14 November 2013). "The Brown Linties by Jessey Wade". HappyCow. Retrieved 28 June 2020.
  9. ^ Amos, Henry Brown (1933). "Ernest Bell: An Appreciation". Cruel Sports: 83.
  10. ^ "Fruit and Food". The Shields Daily Gazette and Shipping Telegraph. 6 January 1925. p. 3.
  11. ^ Venn, John Archibald. (2011). Alumni Cantabrigienses: A Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates and Holders of Office at the University of Cambridge, from the Earliest Times to 1900. Cambridge University Press. p. 220. ISBN 978-1108036115
  12. ^ Gregory, James Richard Thomas Elliott (2002). "Biographical Index of British Vegetarians and Food reformers of the Victorian Era". The Vegetarian Movement in Britain c.1840–1901: A Study of Its Development, Personnel and Wider Connections (PDF). Vol. 2. University of Southampton. p. 17. Retrieved 2 October 2022.
  13. ^ "The Vegetarians". Daily Echo. 7 May 1923. p. 7.
  14. ^ a b "Deaths Dec 1881". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 5 August 2025.
  15. ^ "Marriages". The Pall Mall Gazette. 13 April 1875. p. 3. Retrieved 5 August 2025.
  16. ^ "The Ghost of Dog". The Citizen. 5 June 1914. p. 7.
  17. ^ "Ernest Bell Obituaries". Henry S. Salt Society. Retrieved 26 June 2024.
  18. ^ "Ernest Bell Library". Henry S. Salt Society. Retrieved 24 October 2019.
  19. ^ Edmundson, John (26 July 2014). "The Ernest Bell Library, Our Etymological Past, Sixpences, Dogs and Anti-Vivisection". HappyCow. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
  20. ^ (September 1921). "Our Proper Relationship Towards Animals". Our Dumb Animals. 54 (4): 60 – via Internet Archive.
  21. ^ "Universal Mercy Band Movement British Empire Division". The Animal's Defender and Zoophilist. 6 (1): 17. 1886.

Further reading

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