Lady Bell (1851–1930)

Florence Eveleen Eleanor Bell, née Oliffe, known as Lady Bell, was a noted Victorian writer and social reformer. In 1876, she married Sir Hugh Bell. It was through his ownership of Bell Brothers, a collection of mines, ironworks, and foundries in Yorkshire, that she came to know and care about the lives of the workers. Her book At the Works: Study of a Manufacturing Town, published in 1907, focused on Middlesbrough, provides one of the most graphic accounts of the squalor and hardship experienced by these families. She also wrote plays and stories for adults and children and an educational work called French Without Tears (1895). Lady Bell was the stepmother of Gertrude Bell (1868-1926), the famous traveler, diplomat and archeologist, and served as the editor of her letters after her death.