Gertrude Bell’s Hints to Travellers: Scientific and General

Gertrude Bell (1868-1926) was a writer, archaeologist, and colonial diplomat who played a significant role in the creation of the Kingdom of Iraq in 1921. Although Bell spent the latter years of her life living in Baghdad, her archive and book collection were donated to our library by her family following her death in 1926. Bell’s archive remains one of our most heavily used collections and has recently been made available on our dedicated Gertrude Bell website after being digitised and catalogued to current archival standards. Bell’s book collection, which comprises her working and personal library, complements the archive by contextualising her activities and providing an insight into the way she worked and learned throughout her life.

Although Bell’s own output is impressive (the archive contains over 12,000 unique items), her book collection reflects her diverse interests and shows us the ways in which the work of others supported and inspired her travels. Additionally, Bell’s books are often annotated with notes which document the learning process whilst also serving as reminders of key information she regarded as important. The selection of books in her library and the copy specific information they contain can be interpreted by researchers looking to further understand the work and methods of this unique historical figure.

One item within Bell’s book collection which illustrates the way she used and interacted with her books is her copy of Hints to Travellers: Scientific and General (B910.2 REE) published in 1906 by the Royal Geographical Society. Hints to Travellers was originally created by the Society for,

“a person who, proposing to explore a wild country, asks what astronomical and other scientific outfit he ought to take with him, and what observations he may attempt with a prospect of obtaining accurate results”.

The guide included sections on a wide variety of topics including climate, geography, anthropology, and astronomical observations as well as comprehensive lists of pieces of equipment a traveller would need to take with them on their journey.

Front cover of Hints to Travellers: Scientific and General (Vol. 1)
Bell’s copy of the ninth edition of Hints to Travellers: Scientific and General (Vol. 1) [Gertrude Bell Collection, B910.2 REE]

Bell owned a copy of the ninth edition of the Guide (above), which was published in 1906 and split into two volumes. The first volume, which focused on “Surveying and practical astronomy”, is particularly special as Bell has filled many of the pages with handwritten notes and diagrams. These notes document both her learning process and her use of the methods explained within the book.

Pages from Hints to Travellers: Scientific and General (Vol. 1) showing Bell's handwritten notes and diagrams
Pages from Hints to Travellers: Scientific and General (Vol. 1) showing much of the blank space in the first section of the book filled with Bell’s handwritten notes and diagrams [Gertrude Bell Collection, B910.2 REE]

Bell has also included the latitude and longitude of locations in Lebanon (“Beirut”) and Iraq (“Baghdad Citadel”), which she has presumably been able to calculate using the guide.

Pages from Hints to Travellers: Scientific and General (Vol. 1) showing Bells handwritten notes
Pages from Hints to Travellers: Scientific and General (Vol. 1) [Gertrude Bell Collection, B910.2 REE]

Many of the books within Bell’s library, such as language and grammar books as well as works focusing on history and culture within the Middle East, provide a unique insight into the ways in which Bell prepared herself for her travels across the region. They also indicate the voracious appetite she had for reading and learning, and the wide variety of subjects in which she took an interest.

2 pages from Hints to Travellers: Scientific and General (Vol. 1), left page depicts an advert for 'Norris' Boots for Travellers, and the right page depicts an advert for 'Benson's £25 'field' watch
Pages from Hints to Travellers: Scientific and General (Vol. 1) [Gertrude Bell Collection, B910.2 REE]

Bell’s copy of Hints to Travellers: Scientific and General can be requested here.

The Gertrude Bell Collection can be viewed online using Library Search.

Coronations in the Archives

6th of May 2023 marks the coronation of King Charles III. Coronations are often associated with pomp, pageantry, music and tradition. New works are published and events are recorded by people attending or celebrating the coronation of a new monarch.

One example of this can be found in our Collection of books published in the 19th Century. In 1727 George II commissioned his favourite composer George Frederic Handel to compose new music for his coronation. Handel’s Anthems for the Coronation included The King Shall Rejoice, Let Thy Hand be Strengthened, My Heart is Inditing, and perhaps most famously, Zadok the Priest. Special Collections holds a copy of the music of the four anthems, published in 1843 by the Handel Society. Since George II’s coronation the anthems have been used in all coronations since.

1801-1850 Collection 786 HAN

Traces of the pageantry and celebrations of coronations past can also be found in our archives. In August 1902 King Edward VII was crowned at Westminster Abbey and London was well decorated for the occasion! In one of the photograph albums of our Plowden Archive we find several photographs, likely taken a member of the local Bell family of industrialists, of preparations for the event. This included the hanging of garlands in the City, the erection of temporary stands for spectators of the processions to and from Westminster Abbey, and a temporary annexe built at the West end of the Abbey to allow formal processions to assemble under cover.

Plowden (Bridget) Archive BP/30/4/10 – street scene in London
Plowden (Bridget) Archive BP/30/4/10 – street scene in London
Plowden (Bridget) Archive BP/30/4/10 – street scene in London

In our photograph albums, compiled by the Trevelyan family of Wallington we find another link to the 1902 coronation in the form of an admission ticket to 49 and 50 Parliament Street. This address is only a very short walk from Westminster and would have given the bearer a prime seat to see the king travelling to and from Westminster Abbey.

Trevelyan (Charles Philips) Archive CPT/PA/1 – Admission ticket to spectator seating

King Edward reinged until 1910, when he was succeeded by his son, who became King George V. His coronation was held on the 22nd June 1911. In our Plowden Archive we find evidence that members of the Bell family had an even closer view of proceedings than close by on the procession route. This is in the form of an official invitation to His Majesty’s Lieutenant of the North Riding of Yorkshire and Lady Bell to attend the coronation service in Westminster Abbey. They are better known as Sir Hugh and Lady Florence Bell, industrialists, and parents of explorer and political figure Gertrude Bell.

Plowden (Bridget) Archive BP/30/4/32 – Invite to attend the Coronation of George V at Westminster Abbey

In 1904 Hugh and Florence’s daughter, Molly (Mary) married Charles Philips Trevelyan a landowner and politician. His political career led him to joining the Privvy Council in 1924 and becoming Lord Lieutenant of Northumberland in 1930. In early 1936 George V died and he was succeeded by his son, Edward VIII. Edward’s reign was a short and controversial one which ended with his well-known abdication on the 11th of December 1936, without him being crowned in a coronation. His younger brother George VI succeeded him, and as a member of the Privvy Council Charles Trevelyan had a front row seat at the proclamation of the new king. As he wrote in a letter to his wife Molly “I am going to St James’ Palace to the signing of the Proclamation and whatever other formalities there may be in regard to the new king.”

Trevelyan (Charles Philips) Archive CPT/3/92/103 – Letter from Charles to Molly regarding Charles’ attendance at the proclamation of King George VI.

Later letters in the archive go on to document the celebrations surrounding King George VI’s coronation in 1937 which was attended by Charles and Molly, and the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953. The archive was deposited with Newcastle University by Charles and Molly’s family following Molly’s death in 1966.

There are many other items in our rare book and archive collections which document celebrations around the crowning of a new monarch, ranging in date from the crowing of Queen Victoria in 1838 to the crowning of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. These include song books, Many of these have been digitised and can be found on our CollectionsCaptured site here: https://collectionscaptured.ncl.ac.uk/digital/search/searchterm/coronation

Gertrude Bell and the 1921 Cairo Conference

March 1921 marked a key milestone in the history of the Middle East and Iraq, and one in which Gertrude Bell played an important role. The key event was the Cairo Conference, where British officials met to discuss the political situation and agree on the future political makeup of the region.

Photograph of riders on camels with the Sphinx and pyramids in the background.
Photograph of Gertrude Bell and group on camels involved in the Cairo Conference (1921) GB/PERS/F/002

The conference took place between the 12th and 30th of March in Cairo, Egypt. Key attendees included (Sir) Winston Churchill (at the time Secretary of State for the Colonies), T.E. Lawrence (Special Advisor to the Colonial Office), Sir Percy Cox (High Commissioner of Iraq) and Gertrude Bell herself who had previously been appointed as Oriental Secretary for the High Commissioner of Iraq. Gertrude Bell already had a working relationship with Percy Cox dating back several years to their time spent together in Basra and Baghdad during the First World War where she worked under him using knowledge gained over the preceding years of the local tribal populations and their politics to advise the British leadership.

We know a great deal of Gertrude’s thoughts, opinions and involvement in the conference and middle eastern politics thanks to the letters she wrote throughout her life to family members which were retained, and then passed to Newcastle University after her death in 1926. The university also holds several thousand photographs and diaries chronicling her time travelling and working overseas, often in a great deal of detail. 

Gertrude’s letter of the 12th of March 1921 includes detail of her arrival in Cairo and the Semiramis hotel, and her first evening spent reacquainting with some of the other attendees at the conference:

T.E. Lawrence and others met us at the station – I was glad to see him! We retired at once to my bedroom and had an hour’s talk after which I had a long talk with Clementine while Sir P. [Sir Percy Cox] was closetted [sic] with Mr Churchill. The latter I haven’t seen yet, for he was dining out. I had Gen. Clayton to dinner and a good talk, with an amusing evening afterwards.

Part of a letter written by Gertrude Bell on the 12th March 1921. GB/LETT/1921/3/12

Busy with conference proceedings, and a visit from her father who had travelled to Cairo to see Gertrude, her next letters were written after the end of the conference whilst travelling back to Baghdad. In a letter to Lieutenant Colonel Frank Balfour Gertrude writes of the conference:

Mr Churchill was admirable, most ready to meet everyone half way and masterly alike in guiding a big meeting and in conducting the small political committees into which we broke up. Not the least favourable circumstance was that Sir Percy and I, coming out with a definite programme, found when we came to open our packets that it coincided exactly with that which the S. of S. had brought with him. The general line adopted is, I am convinced, the only right one, the only line which gives real hope of success. We are now going back to find Baghdad, I expect, at a fever pitch of excitement, to square the Naqib and to convince Saiyid Talib, if he is convinceable, that his hopes are doomed to disappointment – it’s a disappointment which will be confined to himself. But I feel certain that we shall have the current of Nationalist opinion in our favour and I’ve no doubt of success.

First page of a letter from Gertrude Bell to Frank Balfour, 25th March 1921. GB/LETT/1921/3/25
Second page of a letter from Gertrude Bell to Frank Balfour, 25th March 1921. GB/LETT/1921/3/25

As Gertrude suggests in her letter written on the 25th of March, the plan that was agreed for the future of Middle East and in particular the formation of the country of Iraq aligned closely with her own vision and ideas including the appointment of Faisal I bin Hussein bin Ali al-Hashemi as the first king of Iraq. Indeed a month later on the 17th of April, when back in Baghdad, Gertrude wrote to her father saying “I’m happy in helping to forward what I profoundly Bellieve [sic] to be the best thing for this country and the wish of the best of its people”. In the same letter she also described her role in the arrest and subsequent exile of Talib al-Naqib who had objected to the British plan for Iraq and threatened a rebellion.

While the extent to which her input influenced the eventual solution can be debated, that the solution she advocated closely reflected the outcome of the conference is reflected in her writing from the time of the conference and the preceding months and years.

Gertrude Bell achieved much as a woman in the early 20th Century, including exploits in mountaineering, travelling and recording middle eastern culture and archaeology, enabled greatly by her privileged upbringing which allowed her the time, finances and social connections to develop her interests. Despite her many remarkable achievements in spheres dominated by men, she was also a prominent anti-suffrage campaigner. This aspect of Gertrude Bell’s life has been explored through an online exhibition curated by a student studying an English Literature ‘Exhibiting Texts’ module and can be found here.

Transcripts of Gertrude Bell’s letters and diaries, and the digitised versions of Gertrude Bell’s collection of photographs can be found on our dedicated Gertrude Bell website by clicking here.

Other blog posts focussing Gertrude Bell and her archive include a post featuring a letter written in 1920 including her thoughts on the Middle Eastern political situation at the time, found here, and a longer post exploring Gertrude’s involvement in the the First World War, found here.

Gertrude Bell, Kingmaker? – January 2020

Newcastle University Special Collections and Archives holds over 1,800 letters written by Gertrude Bell to her family. One in particular was written on the 12th January 1920, where Gertrude Bell writes to her stepmother describing her concerns about the delicate political situation in the Middle East, her hopes for resolution and how she seeks to contribute. Through this and her other writing she demonstrates a depth of knowledge and involvement which contributes significantly to our understanding of early 20th Century politics in the region.

Gertrude’s journey to becoming an important figure in Middle Eastern politics began when she was born into a wealthy family at Washington New Hall in 1868 where she also spent her childhood. After studying at and graduating from Oxford University she was able to travel widely in the first years of the 20th century and developed a deep interest in the Arab region and people. Her knowledge of the region led to her being involved with the British Intelligence Service during the First World War and by 1920 she had been appointed as Oriental Secretary to the British High Commission in Iraq.

Throughout her time in the Middle East she regularly corresponded with her family in Britain, updating them on her life, travels, and thoughts about her work and the political situation in the Middle East. She wrote one such letter on the 12th of January 1920 to her stepmother, Florence Bell.

A transcript of part of this letter is below:

You say that when you open the papers the world seems tempestuous – one does not need to open the papers to realize that here. The Turks to the north of us, exasperated and embracing Bolshevik propaganda, destructive Bolshevism which is all the Turks are capable of – or the Russians either, for that matter, up to the present; the Kurds ready to anyone who holds out the hope that the massacres of Christians shall go unpunished, as in justice they should not, but we’re powerless to enforce justice; the Arab Syrian state to the east of us, feeble and angry, bound to founder in financial deeps, if not in any other, and yet determined not to accept the only European help offered, namely that of France. And then Egypt, turned into a second Ireland largely by our own stupidity; and this country, which way will it go with all these agents of unrest to tempt it? I pray that the people at home may be rightly guided and realize that the only chance here is to recognize political ambitions from the first, not to try to squeeze the Arabs into our mould and have our hands forced in a year – who knows? perhaps less, the world is moving so fast – with the result that the chaos to north and east overwhelms Mesopotamia also. I wish I carried more weight. I’ve written to Edwin and this week I’m writing to Sir A. Hirtzel. But the truth is I’m in a minority of one in the Mesopotamian political service – or nearly – and yet I’m so sure I’m right that I would go to the stake for it – or perhaps just a little less painful form of testimony if they wish for it! But they must see, they must know at home. They can’t be so blind as not to read such gigantic writing on the wall as the world at large is sitting before their eyes.

Well there! I rather wish I were at Paris this week.

I’ve telegraphed to Father saying I hope he’ll come. I would love to show him my world here and I know if he saw if he would understand why I can’t come back to England this year. If they will keep me, I must stay. I can do something, even if it is very little to preach wisdom and restraint among the young Baghdadis whose chief fault is that they are ready to take on the creation of the world tomorrow without winking and don’t realize for a moment that even the creator himself made a poor job of it.

I’ll go to Blanche for a month or 6 weeks in the middle of the summer.

We have no news yet who our new G.O.C. in C. is to be. It’s rather a disaster at this juncture to have a new man who does not know the country, but I expect that’s what it will be.

In this letter she describes the political situation in the region, her concerns and hopes about how the British Government might seek to resolve the situation and details how she hopes to play a part in setting the future direction for the Middle East.

Pages from a letter from Gertrude Bell to her step mother, Florence Bell, written on the 12th January 1920
Pages from a letter from Gertrude Bell to her step mother, Florence Bell, written on the 12th of January 1920
Letter from Gertrude Bell to her step mother, Florence Bell, written on the 12th of January 1920, a full transcript of the letter can be viewed online. Ref: GB/LETT/370

The following year she was present at the conference held at the Semiramis Hotel in Cairo in March 1921 alongside others including T.E. Lawrence and Winston Churchill. Here, the British Government met to discuss the future political shape of the Arab region and it was decided that the choice that Gertrude advocated, Faisal I bin Hussein bin Ali al-Hashemi, would become the first king of the newly formed Kingdom of Iraq. The events of the Cairo Conference are also documented in the letters she sent to her family in Britain and are part of the archive.

The Gertrude Bell Archive is one of the most important and widely accessed within Newcastle University Library’s Special Collections and Archives. It contains over 1,800 letters, 8,000 photographs, diaries and other papers including lecture notes, reports and newspaper cuttings. Together they document her life and travels and form an important record of the archaeology, culture and political landscape of the Middle East in the early decades of the 20th Century. The archive has been recognised for its significance, including the insight it gives into political developments in the Middle East and the formation of Iraq in 1921, through its inclusion on UNESCO’s International Memory of the World Register (a press release regarding UNESCO’s recognition of the archive in 2017 can be found here).

Most of her letters have been fully transcribed and can be browsed and searched on our dedicated Gertrude Bell website. Additionally the photographs she took can also be seen on the website. These photographs, digitised in the 1990s, document many of the archaeological sites that particularly interested her, as well as the people and places she encountered on her earlier travels.

As the photographs are now over 100 years old, and the historic negatives are now unstable and fragile, a project is currently underway to re-digitise the collection to bring it up to current day standards, revealing hitherto unseen detail, and preserving the photographs for future generations.

11th December – 24th Dec 1889 Gertrude Bell Letter

#ChristmasCountdown

Letter dated 24th December 1889, from Gertrude Bell to her mother, Dame Florence Bell

Letter dated 24th December 1889, from Gertrude Bell to her mother, Dame Florence Bell

Letter dated 24th December 1889, from Gertrude Bell to her mother, Dame Florence Bell

Letter dated 24th December 1889, from Gertrude Bell to her mother, Dame Florence Bell

Letter dated 24th December 1889, from Gertrude Bell to her mother, Dame Florence Bell.

[1 December 1889] “Dec 1. Dearest Mother. It is so cold and grey here today, I’m afraid you must be having a cold journey. The little girls and I went out before lunch and walked towards Kirkleatham by the fields coming back by the road. They came up into my room where I made them some Turkish coffee after lunch, they then disappeared into the schoolroom – I expect to see them again shortly. They had supper with me last night, by which they were much amused. Yesterday was lovely, I went for a long walk in the afternoon while the children were at their show.

I have read Swinburne’s Jonson which I will keep for you, it is quite excellent. I should very much like for a Christmas present Jonson’s works edited by Gifford in 3 vols, not big ones I think. There are some of his masques I want very much to read and I don’t think they are to be found anywhere else.

I wonder when Papa is coming home, I half expect him on Wednesday night. The little girls think it is a great pity you are coming back so soon, because we are so comfortable! We shall be delighted to have you, though; one’s own society palls after a time.

We had a capital cooking lesson yesterday, made scones and gingerbread and boiled potatoes. The scones were excellent, I am sure you will like them. Ever your very affectionate daughter Gertrude.

I am telling Bumpus to send Cassell’s dictionary to Sloane St for you to bring home. Miss Thomson wants it. The Italian is marching[?] finely!”

To view more of Gertrude Bell’s letters, diaries and photographs, take a look at the Gertrude Bell website.

This letter is part of the Gertrude Bell archive. Take a look at the Gertrude Bell Collection to find out more about the book collection that formed part of Gertrude Bell’s working library.

Conflicted Hearts – The Doughty-Wylie Correspondence – April 2015

Envelope returned to Gertrude, 29th April 1915, after Doughty-Wylie’s death (Bell (Gertrude) Archive)

The 25th April 2015 marks the centenary of the Gallipoli Campaign during World War I, where over 100,000 men lost their live. Amongst them was Lieutenant Colonel Charles Doughty-Wylie, who had already had a distinguished military career in Turkey and was respected both by his own troops and the Turks.

Lieutenant Colonel Charles Doughty-Wylie

Photograph of The Doughty Wylies in Consulate Gardens, May 1907
The Doughty Wylies in Consulate Gardens, May 1907 (Bell (Gertrude) Archive, I_250)

On 26th April Doughty-Wylie’s leadership and complete disregard for his own safety had succeeded in transforming the dispirited remnants of the landing force and in securing the beach at Gallipoli. While commanding the capture of the strategically important hill 141, armed only with a cane out of respect for his former Turkish allies, Doughty-Wylie was shot by a sniper and died instantly. The hill was renamed Fort Doughty-Wylie in his honour and he was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross; the highest ranking officer to win the award during the Gallipoli campaign.

His lifelong connections to Turkey proved fatalistic in more ways than one and it is through his correspondence with explorer and archaeologist Gertrude Bell, whom he met there in 1907, that we come to understand him through our Gertrude Bell Papers. Although married to Lilian Doughty-Wylie, following a visit to the Bell family home in August 1913, their friendship became something more intimate. Their correspondence, nearing nearly 100 letters and beginning in that August, reflect on their mutual expertise and love of the Middle East, but moreover their long distance, growing affection for each other. Gertrude repeatedly addresses Charles as ‘Dearest heart of my heart’, and expresses despair on hearing he has been mobilised to active duty on 24th January 1915.

Gertrude Bell

Bell’s fears were well founded. His last letter was written five days before his death and her last two letters were written after. They were returned to Gertrude in the envelope pictured at the top on 29th April 1915 and eventually deposited along with the rest of her collection. Their affair remained a secret outside the Bell family and Doughty-Wylie’s letters to Gertrude did not become publicly available until after his wife’s death in 1960.

As part of our centenary commemorations, Bequest Student David Lowther transcribed all of this correspondence, which is now available on the Gertrude Bell website.

Gertrude Bell is also the subject of a Werner Herzog biopic due to be released this year ‘The Queen of the Desert’, the title of which springs directly from this correspondence. Writing on 28th December 1913, and fearing for the safety of Gertrude in her travels through Baghdad, Charles writes ‘And the desert has you – you and your splendid courage my queen of the desert – and my heart with you…’.

Special Collections were delighted to welcome, in January last year, actor Damian Lewis, who plays Charles Doughty-Wylie in ‘Queen of the Desert’ and researched his role by consulting these fascinating letters between two complex people.

Archivist, Geraldine Hunwick, pictured next to actor, Damian Lewis, in the Special Collections Reading Room.

Major Miss Bell: Gertrude Bell and the First World War

Major Miss Bell: Gertrude Bell and the First World War poster

Early Years

Birth and Heritage

Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell was born on 14 July 1868 at Washington New Hall in County Durham, the daughter of Sir Hugh Bell and Mary Shield, and the granddaughter of eminent industrialist, Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell. Elected Lord Mayor of Newcastle in 1875, Sir Isaac owned several iron, steel and aluminium works and factories throughout the country, and was also the director of the North Eastern Railway and the Forth Bridge Company. His success meant that the Bells were, at the time of Gertrude’s birth, the sixth richest family in England. In 1870, Hugh, Mary and Gertrude left Washington Hall to set up their own home at Red Barns in Redcar. Gertrude’s younger brother Maurice was born here in 1871, but the family’s happiness was short-lived, as Gertrude’s mother Mary died shortly after his birth. In 1876, Sir Hugh married the Parisian Florence Oliffe, to whom Gertrude would gradually become very close.

Education

For a young woman in the late nineteenth century, Gertrude’s education was extremely privileged. From the ages of fifteen to seventeen, she attended the exclusive Queen’s College School for girls in London’s Harley Street, established in 1848, and the first institution in Britain to offer the opportunity for girls to gain academic qualifications. In 1886, shortly before turning eighteen, Gertrude became one of the first women to be admitted to Oxford Universityand, just two years later in June 1888, she became the first woman to gain a first class honours in Modern History from Oxford.

22 Feb 1886 - Extract of a letter from Gertrude Bell to her mother speaking of her time in Oxford.
Extract taken from a letter dated 21st May 1886, from Gertrude Bell to her mother, and speaks of her time in Oxford.

Travel and Mountaineering

Photograph of Gertrude Bell dressed in mountaineering clothing titled ‘Gertrude en Mountaineer. [Trevelyan (Charles Philips) Archive, CPT/PA/1]

In May 1892, Gertrude embarked on her first major voyage to Persia (now Iran), beginning a lifetime of travel that encompassed two round-the-world trips (1897–8 and 1902–3), and numerous journeys to the Middle East, which continued until her death in Baghdad (1926). She was enchanted by the Persian surroundings and people, writing in a letter to her cousin Horace Marshall, ‘Isn’t it all charmingly like the Arabian Nights! but that is the charm of it all and it has none of it changed.’ In December 1897, Gertrude set off with her brother Maurice on the first of two round the world journeys, and from 1902–3 she undertook her second round the world trip with her half-brother Hugo. During this period (1899–1904), Gertrude also became a keen mountaineer, climbing regularly in the Alps, and summiting the Meije, Mont Blanc, and the Matterhorn. In 1901, Gertrude became the first person to summit seven of the nine peaks of the Engelhörner range in Switzerland, and in recognition of her achievement one of the peaks, Gertrudespitze, was named after her.

Archaeology, Photography and Cartography

Archaeological Work

Gertrude’s interest in archaeology was initially sparked on a holiday in Greece (1899), during which she first met David Hogarth – an established archaeologist, and a key figure in Gertrude’s later experiences during the First World War. Her fascination with archaeology grew during her journey to Jerusalem (1900), but was cemented with her journey through the Syrian desert to Asia Minor (1904-5), during which she explored the Binbirkilise, a region in the modern Karaman province in Turkey that is known for its multiple Byzantine church ruins.

Gertrude’s account of her travels from Syria through to Asia Minor was published as the popular travelogue The Desert and the Sown (1907) . She returned to the same region with archaeologist Sir William Ramsay (April 1907), to continue work on inscriptions in the ancient churches that she had first discovered towards the end of her previous visit. Gertrude and Sir William Ramsay published their findings in the co-authored book The Thousand and One Churches (1909). She returned to the East again in 1909 without Ramsay, to explore the Roman and Byzantine fortresses and churches along the banks of the Euphrates in Mesopotamia. Her primary objective of this trip was to reach and explore the large castle of Ukhaidir, which lay on the west bank of the river some 120 miles south-west of Baghdad at Ukhaidir, and of which there was no detailed historical or archaeological record in existence. Once she reached the palace, in March 1909, she spent the limited time she had (four days) sketching the huge structure.

Photography

During these journeys, Gertrude became a skilled photographer, documenting her travels and archaeological explorations through her images as well as through her writing. She became a member of the Royal Photographic Society, which enabled her to develop her films professionally. Gertrude carried two cameras with her at all times, and took panoramic shots of entire horizons by combining multiple photographs (see image on left).

The photographs she took during her excavations of various ancient sites, such as image shown the left left, are invaluable to archaeological knowledge and research, particularly because many of the sites have since been looted or vandalised.

Ain Za ‘zu [Tribes-people filling water skins] [Bell (Gertrude) Archive, K/018]

Also significant and fascinating are her photographs of the local people she encountered on her travels, for example (see image on left).

Cartography

As well as archaeological work and excavation, Bell was also interested in mapping the uncharted regions through which she travelled. To aid her in this, she undertook a course in survey methods and map projection at the Royal Geographical Society (1907), and returned to the East to travel a route that curved round the Druze mountains from Damascus to Hail, mapping and surveying the area as she went (1913). Bell’s journey of 1913 has since been highly praised, not least by David Hogarth, former President of the Royal Geographical Society, who, in April 1927, stated to the society that this particular journey of Bell’s ‘was a pioneer venture which not only put on the map a line of wells, before unplaced or unknown, but also cast much new light on the history of the Syrian desert frontiers under Roman, Palnyrene, and Ummayed domination.’

He also gives some hint of the importance of Bell’s work to wartime efforts and military strategies, arguing that:

‘Her information proved of great value during the war, when Hail had ranged itself with our enemy and was menacing our Euphratean flank. Miss Bell became, from 1915 onwards, the interpreter of all reports received from Central Arabia.’

Charles Doughty-Wylie

Konya (Iconium): The Doughty-Wylie’s with servant and dog in Consulate [Bell (Gertrude) Archive, I/246]

During her 1907 archaeological trip to Turkey with Sir William Ramsay to revisit the Binbirkilise, Gertrude met Charles Doughty-Wylie, who would soon become the love of her life. Major Charles Doughty-Wylie of the Royal Welch Fusiliers– known as Dick to his friends – had served in the Boer War, the East Africa campaign of 1903, and in Tientsin during the Chinese rebellion. By the time he met Gertrude, he was the British military consul at Konya in Turkey (see image above), and had married his wife, Lilian, just three years beforehand. Gertrude was invited to stay with the Doughty-Wylie’s at their house in Konya on the final leg of her trip, from where she wrote to her mother, it’s a great alleviation to be staying with the Wylies – they are dears, both of them. I’ve had a very pleasant restful two days. It’s pretty hot but one sits out in their big garden under the trees.’ (see image show below).

The Love Affair

After meeting in 1907, Gertrude and Dick kept in touch, having discovered in each other a mutual love of the culture and history of the Middle East. In the spring of 1912, the two met in London when Dick arrived, without his wife, to take up the position of director-in-chief of the Red Cross relief organisation. During this brief period, Gertrude welcomed Dick into her circle of friends, and regularly took him to the theatre, to music halls, and to dinner. After this, the correspondence between the two intensified both in frequency and in passion. When Gertrude went travelling, she sent Dick full diaries of her journeys, such as the one of her journey to Ha’il. The depth of emotion in Gertrude’s letters to Dick in comparison to those she sent to her family becomes most evident during the First World War. Where she sent her family relatively short, largely factual missives designed, apparently, not to worry them, to Dick she poured out her heart and her fears concerning the conflict. For example, in a letter to her father written on 30 December 1914, when Gertrude was working in the Red Cross Office for the Missing and Wounded in Boulogne, she wrote of ‘the immense sacrifice we had to make to retake the trenches the Indian troops had lost’ (see image below).

In contrast, the language she uses in her letter of the same day to Dick is full of emotion, signifying the closeness between them:

When our men have to relieve them, they must go into trenches which offer them no shelter, nor pay in lieu of their neglect. Its not worth it. Oh my dear, my dear, the horror of it all, & then the shining courage, this devotion – yes, I know the more I talk of it, the more you long to be brave’ (image below).

Gertrude was willing to let only Dick see the pain and sadness she so often felt, and the deep depression that the war triggered within her. Though their affair remained unconsummated, the strength of their love for each other is overwhelmingly evident in their letters, and their relationship is focal point of Werner Herzog’s recent biopic of Gertrude, Queen of the Desert (2015), starring Nicole Kidman as Gertrude, and Damian Lewis as Dick.

Doughty-Wylie’s Death at Gallipoli

26th April 1915 - Daily Chronicle cutting with the headline 'Hero'd Death after Victory Won'.
Newspaper cutting from the Daily Chronicle, 26th April 1915 titled ‘Hero’s Death after Victory Won’. [Bell (Gertrude) Archive, Item 39]

On 26 April 1915, the second day of the Gallipoli campaign, Charles Doughty-Wylie was shot and killed instantly by a sniper during a successful attack organised and led by him and another officer, Captain Garth Walford (who was also killed)

Unaware of his fate, Gertrude continued to write to Dick, only learning of his death when she visited London (June 1915). The letters to her parents during this period are sparse, but their brevity signals her heartbreak, in particular the short note sent on 11 June 1915, days after she had learned of Dick’s death:

‘Dearest Mother. Thank you and Father for your letters. I haven’t anything to say that’s worth, or at any rate worthy of saying, and therefore I don’t write. Your affectionate daughter Gertrude’.

Envelope that Gertrude Bell's letters were returned upon Charles Doughty-Wylie's death
Envelope that Gertrude Bell’s letter were returned to her upon Charles Doughty’Wylie’s death. [Bell (Gertrude) Archive, Item 19]

The image above is to show the envelope that was returned to Gertrude Bell containing her letters to Dick following his death. Dick was buried where he fell at Gallipoli, and towards the end of 1915, a mysterious, veiled female visitor was seen visiting his grave (image shown below), thought to have been the only woman who landed during the Gallipoli campaign. Who this woman was has never been confirmed – possibly it was Dick’s wife, but, equally possible, it was Gertrude.

Photograph of Charles Doughty-Wylie’s grave, buried where he fell at Gallipoli [Bell (Gertrude) Archive, Item 19]

Red Cross in London and Boulougne

Hospital Work at the Outbreak of the First World War

In November 1914, following the outbreak of the First World War, Gertrude began work in a hospital at the house of Lord Onslow in Clandon Park, Surrey, which was filled primarily with wounded Belgian troops. However, much to her dismay, Gertrude’s role was purely administrative, and involved none of the nursing she longed to do. In a letter to her mother on 15 November, she complained:

‘They won’t let me go into the wards to do any nursing on the ground that I shall not be able to keep authority over people who during some hours of the day would be in authority over me. I’m sorry because I should have liked to have had some sort of experience of all kinds and also because I haven’t yet enough to do to fill in my day. But perhaps if I wait patiently I may yet get my way’

However, a mere two days later, Gertrude was sent for by the Red Cross to work in their Boulogne office, helping to trace missing and wounded soldiers, and by 25 November, she was already hard at work in Boulogne.

The Boulogne Red Cross Office

Upon her arrival at the Red Cross Office for Missing and Wounded in Boulogne, Gertrude was faced with a chaotic and ineffectual system for recording the missing and wounded. She took it upon herself to reorganise the entire office, and to put in place new indexing systems, writing to her mother that (8th January 1915),

‘I have made this office – it was fearfully wild before I came (you mustn’t ever say this) and now I’m doing 3 times what was done before and 3 times as accurately’.

Gertrude felt strongly that the Red Cross should be as sensitive as possible when informing families of the loss of their sons, fathers and brothers, and explained this to her mother (12th January 1915):

‘I think the form in which news is conveyed is one of the most important points in our work – you can well understand that it should be when you think of the kind of news we mostly have to convey. And I know at least that when I do it I spare no pains to make it less bitter. There are some stories which I never tell; if I can help it they shall never be known. It’s enough that people should learn that the man is dead without hearing the terrible things that I know.’

London Red Cross Headquarters

In March 1915, Gertrude agreed to move to the headquarters of the London Red Cross in London, to continue her work recording missing and wounded soldiers, and informing their families. Determined to do the job well, Gertrude found herself once more frustrated with the lack of adequate facilities, and most of all with the lack of space, writing to her mother that (20th August 1915):

‘We are once more in difficulties for want of space, even with all the Duke’s first floor. We have taken on another piece of work, at the request (between ourselves) of the Foreign Office. It is the gathering in and tabulating of all information with regard to prison camps in Germany. It is of vital importance that we should have this knowledge properly arranged for it shows us how best to help our prisoners, and who stands in most need of help. But it means more files, more archives, more people working on them, and how to have them I don’t know’.

In October 1915, Gertrude wrote about the vital work of the Red Cross Inquiry Department for The Times (see Item G). By November 1915, however, after less than four months at the British Red Cross Headquarters in London, Gertrude was called to Cairo by the Foreign Office.

Article in the Times Red Cross Supplement, Inquiry Department: Wounded, Missing and Prisoners—Allaying Anxiety at Home, 21st October 1915
Article in the Times Red Cross Supplement, Inquiry Department: Wounded, Missing and Prisoners—Allaying Anxiety at Home, 21st October 1915 [Bell (Gertrude) Archive, Item 22]

Cairo, Delhi & Basra

Cairo

Colonel Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) & Miss Gertrude Bell. [Bell (Gertrude) Archive, PERS/F/001A]

In November 1915, David Hogarth, who had known Gertrude since 1899, enlisted her to come and work at the newly established Arab Bureau in Cairo, a British intelligence organisation dealing with Middle Eastern affairs. T.E. Lawrence – better known today as Lawrence of Arabia – also worked for the Bureau alongside Gertrude, and the two became close friends (see image to the left). Gertrude was employed by the Bureau in Cairo to interpret reports from Central Arabia, as well as to document ‘Arab tribes, their numbers and lineage. It’s a vague and difficult subject which would take a lifetime to do properly. On New Year’s Day (1916), Gertrude wrote to her mother from Cairo reflecting on the past year of war:

My dearest Mother. A second year of war – and I can only wish you, as I wished you last first of January that we may not see another. Never another year like the last, though I wonder if I could choose, whether I would not have it all again, for the wonder it held, and bear the sorrow again‘ (see image below).

Delhi

In late January 1916, Gertrude went to Delhi to meet the Viceroy of India, Lord Charles Hardinge. She was to discuss with him the friction between the British Intelligence Departments of India and Egypt over the ‘Arab Question’, and to communicate the views of her department. Initially unsure of the success of this plan, she wrote to her father,whether much good will come of it I don’t know, but it’s worth trying and at any rate I shall learn a good deal for I hope they will let me dig into their Arab files and see what can be added from them to our knowledge (see image below). In fact, her visit to Delhi was extremely productive, and led to her being enlisted by the Viceroy to Basra in order not only to help with the Intelligence Department there, but also to improve communication between the different departments by acting as liaison between them.

Basra

When Gertrude arrived in Basra in March 1916, she stayed in the home of Sir Percy and Lady Cox until she could find a place of her own. Letters she wrote to her mother talk of her frustration at the impermanent, transient nature of her work. Nevertheless, Gertrude gave her full attention to the number of tasks at hand, which included classifying tribal material, a process in which her own prior knowledge from her travels. Gertrude also had strong views on the political situation in the Middle East, and was frustrated with what she perceived to be Britain’s mishandling of it:

we rushed into the business with our usual disregard for a comprehensive political scheme. We treated Mesop[otamia] as if it were an isolated unit, instead of which it is part of Arabia, its politics indissolubly connected with the great and far reaching
Arab question, which presents indeed, different facets as you regard it from different aspects, and is yet always and always one and the same indivisible block
 (see image below).

Gertrude was appointed to the paid position of Official Correspondent to Cairo (June 1916), and also head of the Iraq branch of the Arab Bureau as an officer of the Indian Expeditionary Force D. She became increasingly influential, providing the Intelligence Department with summaries of recent Arabian history, and writing memoranda about British-Arabian relations, such as, ‘The Nomad Tribes of Arabia’ (pages 16 and 17 are shown below).

The Nomad Tribes of Arabia, Page 16
Page 16 from ‘The Nomad Tribes of Arabia[Bell (Gertrude) Archive]
The Nomad Tribes of Arabia, Page 17
Page 17 from ‘The Nomad Tribes of Arabia[Bell (Gertrude) Archive]

In January 1917, Gertrude was appointed Oriental Secretary by Sir Percy Cox, and continued as head of the Arab Bureau (Iraq). Gertrude left Basra for Baghdad (April 1917), following the British occupation of Baghdad (11 March 1917).

Baghdad & the Aftermath of the First World War

Bell’s Role in Baghdad

Gertrude arrived in Baghdad on 20 April 1917. She was awarded a CBE for her war work in the Middle East (October 1917), though she displayed a characteristic lack of excitement to the news, writing to her father that such awards mean so very little and I never can manage to remember who has got them and who hasn’t. One judges the man by the work one knows he has done and the special label which has been affixed doesn’t make the leats difference. Frequently it’s tosh.’ . Instead, she preferred to focus on her work, which included an appointment as editor of Al Arab, and anonymously authoring a well-received text, The Arab of Mesopotamia.

Later, Gertrude was much amused by reviews of the book that assumed it had been written by a group of ‘practical men’, writing to her mother, ‘Why yes of course I wrote all the Arab of Mesopotamia. I’ve loved the reviews which speak of the practical men who were the anonymous authors etc. It’s fun being practical men isn’t it’(see image below).

Bell’s Belief in Iraq

Gertrude was passionate about the future of Iraq, and wanted to ensure that the best was done for both the country and its people. On 30 October 1918, eleven days before the ceasefire of the First World War, the Turkish government signed the Armistice of Mudros with the Allied Forces. Gertrude’s work intensified in the months following the end of the war. She was heavily involved in decision making regarding Iraq, and while she felt strongly that the British administration needed to act in the best interests of the Iraqi population, she also had her own very clear ideas about what those best interests were. She was, for example, frustrated with calls for an Arab Amir to lead the country instead of Sir Percy Cox as British leader. For Gertrude, the only viable option was British rule in the Middle East:

The East is inclined to lose its head over the promise of settling for itself what is to become of it. It can’t settle for itself really – we out here know that very well – because it might hit on something that certainly wouldn’t imply stable government and that we can’t allow in the interests of universal peace. But it is not going to be an easy job to hold the balance straight when it is disturbed by the gusts of hot air emitted from home in the shape of international declarations. The vast majority here haven’t any views at all; most of the thinking people want our administration, guided by Sir Percy, but there’s a small if vociferous group which thinks they could get on quite well alone and certainly have much more fun individually without us. They would have immense fun for a bit, I don’t doubt it, but it would be a very short bit, abruptly ending in universal anarchy and bloodshed (see an image extract below).

The consequences of such views held by Gertrude and her colleagues, and the extent of British involvement in reshaping the Middle East following the First World War, continue to be powerfully felt today.

Bell’s Role in the Formation of Iraq

In the years following the end of the First World War, the British Government’s attentions turned to determining the lines along which the borders of the new Iraq would be drawn, and Gertrude was heavily involved in the decision making process.

Crowd at the coronation of King Faisal [Bell (Gertrude) Archive, Pers/B/17/O/Robinson]

She attended the Paris Peace Conference as the representative of the Arab Bureau (1919), and later attended the ten-day Cairo Conference (March 1921), which was organised by Winston Churchill with the objective to work towards an independent Arab Government. To that end, Bell was instrumental in the selection of Prince Faisal as the new King of Mesopotamia (crowned July 1921 – see image to the left). While she became a close friend to King Faisal, and worked closely with him for the rest of her life, she found the process of nominating and publicising a potential king strenuous, writing to her father shortly after Faisal’s coronation that you may rely upon one thing – I’ll never engage in creating kings again, it is too great a strain.

Perhaps most famously, however, Bell was central in drawing the borders of Iraq during this period. In a letter to her father (December 1921), she writes, ‘I had a well spent morning at the office making out the Southern desert frontier of the Iraq […] One way and another, I think I’ve been succeeded in compiling a frontier’. After the coronation of King Faisal, the drawing of these borders, and the establishment of the new Iraqi Government, Bell refocused her efforts back into archaeology and historical research, and was appointed the Honorary Director of Antiquities for Iraq (October 1922). Bell initiated the Iraq Museum (October 1923), the first room of which opened in June 1926, just one month short of Bell’s death from an overdose of sleeping pills (12 July 1926). Four years after her death, a commemorative bronze plaque was unveiled by King Faisal, and a bust of Bell was erected to identify the Gertrude Bell principle wing of the Iraq Museum.

Find out More

Transcripts of most of Gertrude Bell’s letters and all of her diaries, together with digital copies of her extensive photograph albums, are available to browse at the dedicated Gertrude Bell website.