Bell, Gertrude ___ 1868-1926 ___ British ___ diplomat writer

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Bell was born in Washington, then part of County Durham, but moved to Redcar when still young. She was educated in London, and then read history at Oxford. She travelled extensively, not only in Europe but to Persia where her uncle was British minister at Tehran. In subsequent years, she travelled widely in the Middle East, learning Arabic, meeting many Arab tribal leaders and investigating archaeological sites. She also collaborated with T E Lawrence. British Intelligence recruited her during the First World War, and subsequently she was appointed Oriental Secretary to the High Commissioner in Baghdad, and was an important influence in the naming of Faisal, the recently deposed King of Syria, as first King of Iraq. She also established the Iraq Museum in Baghdad.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio
The Diary Review - The Arabian Diaries

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1877-1919 ___ travel politics self love/sex archaeology Switzerland Persia China Syria

WEB TEXT LINKS
etext
a bit about
a bit about

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
Newcastle upon Tyne University: The Robinson Library
British Library, Manuscript Collections - 1911

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
Gertrude Bell: The Arabian Diaries, 1913-1914
 

December 2006, September 2008, March 2013
Please email if you have any corrections, additions or comments, or if you've found the site useful. Thank you.

IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.