Gertrude
of Arabia: the great adventurer may finally get her museum
She was an
explorer, an archaeologist, a writer and a spy. Now there’s a
campaign to save Gertrude Bell’s vandalised home
Pat Yale
Tuesday 9 August
2016 08.00 BST
Back in the 1880s,
the evening train from Middlesbrough would often stop right in front
of a stately house in Redcar called Red Barns. Out would step Hugh
Bell, the cultured and wealthy head of a sprawling iron, steel and
chemical empire. As often as not, waiting to greet him as he strode
up the garden path would be the daughter who would later find fame as
an explorer, archaeologist, writer and spy.
Once a book-lined
and pet-filled family home, Red Barns has fallen on hard times. But a
campaign has now been launched to buy it and convert it into a
memorial to Gertrude Bell, turning the spotlight back on to a woman
who was, in the early 20th century, as famous as Lawrence of Arabia.
Gertrude was one of
those rare individuals who have only to take up an activity to make a
success of it. Aged just 20, she was the first woman to achieve a
first in history at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. By her early 30s, she
had mastered Farsi well enough to produce a translation of the Divan
of Hafiz that is still admired in present-day Iran. She then became
so successful a mountaineer that a peak in the Swiss Alps is named
after her. And she was one of the first archaeologists – and
certainly the first woman - to examine the Byzantine remains of
Anatolian Turkey.
On the day her
grandfather's iron and steel works opened, he rode through Newcastle
in an aluminium top hat
Yet those are her
mere add-on accomplishments. For today, Gertrude is mainly remembered
as the woman who explored much of the Middle East, taking some of the
earliest photographs of the monuments now being destroyed by Isis.
The knowledge she acquired became invaluable to the British
government during the first world war. In later life, Gertrude
settled in Baghdad and took on the role of kingmaker to Faisal. Once
the new monarchy was established, she threw herself into the creation
of the National Museum of Iraq. She died in 1926, in Baghdad, almost
certainly at her own hand.
Gertrude – whose
story was told in Werner Herzog’s 2015 film Queen of the Desert,
starring Nicole Kidman – was not the only larger than life
character in her family. The wealth that facilitated her Middle
Eastern wanderings was originally created by her formidable
grandfather, Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, who had set up an iron and
steel works in Newcastle and an aluminium plant in Middlesbrough. On
the day it opened, he rode through Newcastle wearing an aluminium top
hat. Despite their important role in the history of northeast
England, the Bells are oddly unremembered. A blue plaque on Red Barns
may commemorate Gertrude, but there is no statue of her let alone a
museum.
Gertrude Bell’s
home, Red Barns, in Redcar, in the 1920s.
The blue plaque at
Red Barns Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo
A rare opportunity
has presented itself to right this wrong. In 1868, Gertrude’s
father commissioned a new home for his young family in the heart of
Redcar. Largely the brainchild of William Morris, the Arts and Crafts
movement tends to be associated with southern England. But the Bells
were to become enthusiastic patrons of the style in the northeast. In
1868, it was to Philip Webb, a man synonymous with Arts and Crafts,
that Hugh turned.
Only Webb’s second
commission as an architect, Red Barns bears a striking resemblance to
the better-known Red House in Bexleyheath, London, which he had
co-designed with Morris in 1860. A two-storeyed mansion built from
hand-moulded bricks and featuring hipped roofs and soaring chimneys,
Red Barns is described as Georgian vernacular revival by Historic
England. Its interior was the work of Morris, who wallpapered it with
blackbirds singing against a bright blue sky.
Red Barns is infused
with Gertrude’s presence. It was here that she played games of
“housemaids” with her brothers and sisters, dashing silently from
the cellars to the attics while attempting to avoid being spotted by
the servants. It was in the extensive gardens that she cultivated her
lifelong love of flowers. Scrambling up the scaffolding as the house
was extended in 1882 may have given her the head for heights that
turned her into a mountaineer. Riding the ponies stabled at Red Barns
gave her the confidence to ride across virtually unmapped tracts of
the Middle East. And it was while living at Red Barns that she
developed another lifelong passion that has made her such a gift to
historians: letter-writing.
Nicole Kidman as
Gertrude Bell and Robert Pattinson as TE Lawrence in Queen of the
Desert.
Much taken with
Webb’s work, Gertrude’s grandfather also commissioned him to
design Rounton Grange near Northallerton, entrusting the interior
decoration to Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. And his weekend retreat,
the medieval Mount Grace Priory near Osmotherley, was also treated to
an Arts and Crafts update. Given the family’s involvement with the
industrial development of the northeast, it’s ironic that they
should have chosen to associate themselves so strongly with an
architectural movement whose practitioners were proudly
anti-industrial.
After the first
world war, luck ran out for the Bell family. They lost much of their
fortune to death duties and increased competition in the iron and
steel industry. Mount Grace Priory is now owned by English Heritage,
which meticulously reproduced some of the original Morris wallpaper
in its restoration. Otherwise, time has not been especially kind to
their built legacy. Washington New Hall has been turned into
apartments. And once the family’s fortune was gone, nothing could
save magnificent Rounton Grange from the wrecker’s ball. In 1953,
it was completely demolished.
The fountain
that stood in the garden has been stolen
“Red Barns is
Grade II* listed,” says Carol Pyrah of Historic England, “putting
it in the top 8% of buildings in England in terms of its special
architectural and historic interest.” Yet even so, it was converted
into a pub and hotel. Now the hotel has closed, leaving the house
vulnerable to vandalism. Stones have been thrown at the lovely
“porthole” stained-glass window and, according to Jan Long,
founder of the Gertrude Bell Society, the fountain that stood proudly
in the garden where Gertrude planted flowers has been stolen.
In 2015, the Great
North Museum in Newcastle hosted a successful exhibition entitled The
Extraordinary Gertrude Bell, which has now moved to Kirkleatham
Museum in Redcar. But members of the newly formed Friends of Red
Barns think the house would make a perfect permanent home for the
exhibition and have launched a campaign to save it from conversion
into flats.
Redcar MP Anna
Turley is spearheading the campaign. “I was becoming increasingly
distressed at the visible decline of this historic building,” she
says, “and was contacted by many constituents with the same
concerns.” Now she is hopeful that a new museum could help
kickstart tourism in an area badly hit by recent steelwork closures.
“The exhibition
has shown the importance of an understanding of past events and
issues that have ongoing significance in the Middle East in
particular,” says Dr Mark Jackson, manager of the Gertrude Bell
Photographic Archive at Newcastle University and co-curator of the
exhibition. “Red Barns promises to provide inspiration for a host
of initiatives that could sustain the building long term while making
a very positive contribution to future society.”
The trains may no
longer stop in front of Gertrude Bell’s childhood home. But the
chance now exists to turn Red Barns into a memorial to one of the
greatest women ever born in the UK.
The
Extraordinary Gertrude Bell is at Kirkleatham Museum, Redcar, until 1
January; gertrudebellsociety.weebly.com
Gertrude Margaret
Lowthian Bell, CBE (14 July 1868 – 12 July 1926) was an English
writer, traveller, political officer, administrator, spy and
archaeologist who explored, mapped, and became highly influential to
British imperial policy-making due to her knowledge and contacts,
built up through extensive travels in Greater Syria, Mesopotamia,
Asia Minor, and Arabia. Along with T. E. Lawrence, Bell helped
support the Hashemite dynasties in what is today Jordan as well as in
Iraq.
She played a major
role in establishing and helping administer the modern state of Iraq,
utilising her unique perspective from her travels and relations with
tribal leaders throughout the Middle East. During her lifetime she
was highly esteemed and trusted by British officials and given an
immense amount of power for a woman at the time. She has been
described as "one of the few representatives of His Majesty's
Government remembered by the Arabs with anything resembling
affection".
Bell was born on 14
July 1868 in Washington New Hall, County Durham, England – now
known as Dame Margaret Hall – to a family whose wealth enabled her
travels. She is described as having "reddish hair and piercing
blue-green eyes, with her mother's bow shaped lips and rounded chin,
her father’s oval face and pointed nose". Her personality was
characterised by energy, intellect, and a thirst for adventure which
shaped her path in life. Her grandfather was the ironmaster Sir Isaac
Lowthian Bell, an industrialist and a Liberal Member of Parliament,
in Benjamin Disraeli's second term. His role in British policy-making
exposed Gertrude at a young age to international matters and most
likely encouraged her curiosity for the world, and her later
involvement in international politics.
Bell's mother, Mary
Shield Bell, died in 1871 while giving birth to a son, Maurice (later
the 3rd Baronet). Gertrude Bell was just three at the time, and the
death led to a lifelong close relationship with her father, Sir Hugh
Bell, 2nd Baronet, who was three times mayor of Middlesbrough (1874,
1883 and 1911), High Sheriff of Durham (1895), Justice of the Peace,
Deputy Lieutenant of County Durham and Lord Lieutenant of the North
Riding of Yorkshire. Throughout her life she consulted with him on
political matters. Some biographies say the loss of her mother had
caused underlying childhood trauma, revealed through periods of
depression and risky behaviour.
At the age of seven
Bell acquired a stepmother, Florence Bell, and eventually, three
half-siblings. Florence Bell was a playwright and author of
children's stories, as well as the author of a study of Bell factory
workers. She instilled concepts of duty and decorum in Gertrude and
contributed to her intellectual development. Florence Bell's
activities with the wives of Bolckow Vaughan ironworkers in Eston,
near Middlesbrough, may have helped influence her step-daughter's
later stance promoting education of Iraqi women.
Gertrude Bell
received her early education from Queen's College in London and then
later at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University, at the age of 17.
History was one of the few subjects women were allowed to study, due
to the many restrictions imposed on them at the time. She specialised
in modern history, in which she received a first class honours degree
in two years.
Bell never married
or had children. She befriended British colonial administrator Sir
Frank Swettenham on a visit to Singapore with her brother Hugo in
1903 and maintained a correspondence with him until 1909. She had a
"brief but passionate affair" with Swettenham following his
retirement to England in 1904. She also had an unconsummated affair
with Maj. Charles Doughty-Wylie, a married man, with whom she
exchanged love letters from 1913 to 1915. After his death in 1915
during the Battle of Gallipoli, Bell launched herself into her work.
Bell's uncle, Sir
Frank Lascelles, was British minister (similar to ambassador) at
Tehran, Persia. In May 1892, after leaving Oxford, Bell travelled to
Persia to visit him. She described this journey in her book, Persian
Pictures, which was published in 1894. She spent much of the next
decade travelling around the world, mountaineering in Switzerland,
and developing a passion for archaeology and languages. She had
become fluent in Arabic, Persian, French and German as well as also
speaking Italian and Turkish. In 1899, Bell again went to the Middle
East. She visited Palestine and Syria that year and in 1900, on a
trip from Jerusalem to Damascus, she became acquainted with the Druze
living in Jabal al-Druze.She travelled across Arabia six times over
the next 12 years.
Between 1899 and
1904, she conquered a number of mountains including the La Meije and
Mont Blanc as she recorded 10 new paths or first ascents in the
Bernese Alps. One Alpine peak in the Bernese Oberland, the 2,632 m
(8,635 ft) Gertrudspitze, was named after her after it was first
traversed by her and her guides Ulrich and Heinrich Fuhrer in 1901.
However, she did fail in an attempt of the Finsteraarhorn in August
1902 when inclement weather including snow, hail and lightning forced
her to spend "forty eight hours on the rope" with her
guides, clinging to the rock face in terrifying conditions which
nearly cost her her life.
Bell's workers at
the Binbirkilise excavations in 1907
She published her
observations in the book Syria: The Desert and the Sown published in
1907 (William Heinemann Ltd, London). In this book she described,
photographed and detailed her trip to Greater Syria's towns and
cities like Damascus, Jerusalem, Beirut, Antioch and Alexandretta.
Bell's vivid descriptions opened up the Arabian deserts to the
western world. In March 1907, Bell journeyed to the Ottoman Empire
and began to work with the archaeologist and New Testament scholar
Sir William M. Ramsey. Their excavations in Binbirkilise were
chronicled in A Thousand and One Churches. In 1907, they discovered a
field of ruins in northern Syria on the east bank of the upper course
of the Euphrates to the steep slope of the former river valley. From
the ruins, they created a plan and described the ramparts: "Munbayah,
where my tents were pitched – the Arabic name means only a
high-altitude course – was probably the Bersiba in Ptolemy's list
of city names. It consists of a double rampart, situated on the river
bank "
In January 1909, she
left for Mesopotamia. She visited the Hittite city of Carchemish,
mapped and described the ruin of Ukhaidir and finally went to Babylon
and Najaf. Back in Carchemish, she consulted with the two
archaeologists on site. One of them was T. E. Lawrence. Her 1913
Arabian journey was generally difficult. She was the second foreign
woman after Lady Anne Blunt to visit Ha'il.
In 1927, a year
after her death, her stepmother Dame Florence Bell published two
volumes of Bell's collected correspondence written during the 20
years preceding World War I.
At the outbreak of
World War I, Bell's request for a Middle East posting was initially
denied. She instead volunteered with the Red Cross in France.
Later, she was asked
by British Intelligence to get soldiers through the deserts, and from
the World War I period until her death she was the only woman holding
political power and influence in shaping British imperial policy in
the Middle East. She often acquired a team of locals which she
directed and led on her expeditions. Throughout her travels Bell
established close relations with tribe members across the Middle
East. Additionally, being a woman gave her exclusive access to the
chambers of wives of tribe leaders, giving her access to other
perspectives and functions.
In November 1915,
however she was summoned to Cairo to the nascent Arab Bureau, headed
by General Gilbert Clayton. She also again met T. E. Lawrence.
Like Lawrence, Bell
had attended Oxford and earned First Class Honours in Modern History.
Bell spoke Arabic, Persian, French and German. She was an
archaeologist, traveller and photographer in the Middle East before
World War I. Upon the recommendation of renowned archaeologist and
historian Lt. Cmdr. David Hogarth, first Lawrence, then Bell, were
assigned to Army Intelligence Headquarters in Cairo in 1915 for war
service. Because both Bell and Lawrence had travelled the desert and
established ties with the local tribes and gained unique perspectives
of the people and the land before World War I, Hogarth realised the
value of Lawrence and Bell's expertise. Both Bell and Lawrence stood
hardly 5'5", yet both could ride with great determination and
endurance through the desert for hours on end.
Arriving in February
1916, she did not, at first, receive an official position, but
instead helped Hogarth set about organising and processing her own,
Lawrence's and Capt. W. H. I. Shakespear's data about the location
and disposition of Arab tribes that could be encouraged to join the
British against the Ottoman Empire. Lawrence and the British used the
information in forming alliances with the Arabs.
On 3 March 1916,
Gen. Clayton abruptly sent Bell to Basra, which British forces had
captured in November 1914, to advise Chief Political Officer Percy
Cox regarding an area she knew better than any other Westerner. Cox
found her an office in his headquarters, where she was employed for
the two days per week she was not at Military GHQ Basra. She drew
maps to help the British army reach Baghdad safely. She became the
only female political officer in the British forces and received the
title of "Liaison Officer, Correspondent to Cairo" (i.e. to
the Arab Bureau where she had been assigned). She was St. John
Philby's field controller, and taught him the finer arts of
behind-the-scenes political manoeuvering.
I went out last week
along the light railway 25 miles into the desert it's the Nasariyeh
Railway - ...it was so curious to travel 50 minutes by rail and
find...General Maude, our new army commander, has just arrived. I've
made his acquaintance…
While in the Middle
East, Gertrude Bell became a witness to the Armenian Genocide. She
remarked that in comparison to previous massacres, the massacres of
preceding years "were not comparable to the massacres carried
out in 1915 and the succeeding years." Bell also reported that
in Damascus, "Turks sold Armenian women openly in the public
market." In an intelligence report, Gertrude Bell wrote:
The battalion left
Aleppo on 3 February and reached Ras al-Ain in twelve hours....some
12,000 Armenians were concentrated under the guardianship of some
hundred Kurds...These Kurds were called gendarmes, but in reality
mere butchers; bands of them were publicly ordered to take parties of
Armenians, of both sexes, to various destinations, but had secret
instructions to destroy the males, children and old women...One of
these gendarmes confessed to killing 100 Armenian men himself...the
empty desert cisterns and caves were also filled with corpses...No
man can ever think of a woman's body except as a matter of horror,
instead of attraction, after Ras al-Ain."
After British troops
took Baghdad on 10 March 1917, Bell was summoned by Cox to Baghdad
and given the title of "Oriental Secretary." She, Cox and
Lawrence were among a select group of "Orientalists"
convened by Winston Churchill to attend a 1921 Conference in Cairo to
determine the boundaries of the British mandate (e.g., "the
British Partitions") and nascent states such as Iraq. Gertrude
is supposed to have described Lawrence as being able "to ignite
fires in cold rooms".
Throughout the
conference, she, Cox and Lawrence worked tirelessly to promote the
establishment of the countries of Transjordan and Iraq to be presided
over by the Kings Abdullah and Faisal, sons of the instigator of the
Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire (ca. 1915–1916), Hussein bin
Ali, Sharif and Emir of Mecca. Until her death in Baghdad, she served
in the Iraq British High Commission advisory group there.
Another target of
her efforts was thwarting the ambitions of Zionist movement. Gertrude
Bell's hostility towards Zionism was as passionate as her advocacy of
the Arab cause - she thought the Jews had no place in Palestine.
Referred to by
Persians as "al-Khatun" (a Lady of the Court who keeps an
open eye and ear for the benefit of the State), she was a confidante
of King Faisal of Iraq and helped ease his passage into the role,
amongst Iraq's other tribal leaders at the start of his reign. He
helped her to found Baghdad's great Iraqi Archaeological Museum from
her own modest artefact collection and to establish The British
School of Archaeology, Iraq, for the endowment of excavation projects
from proceeds in her will. The stress of authoring a prodigious
output of books, correspondence, intelligence reports, reference
works, and white papers; of recurring bronchitis attacks brought on
by years of heavy smoking in the company of English and Arab cohorts;
of bouts with malaria; and finally, of coping with Baghdad's summer
heat all took a toll on her health. Somewhat frail to start with, she
became nearly emaciated.
Some consider the
present troubles in Iraq are derived from the political boundaries
Bell conceived, to create its borders. Perhaps so, but her reports
indicate that problems were foreseen, and that it was clearly
understood that there were just not many (if any) permanent solutions
for calming the divisive forces at work in that part of the world.
Mark Sykes, the
British diplomat responsible for the Sykes–Picot Agreement, was not
fond of her. He once described her as
"conceited,
gushing, flat-chested, man-woman, globe-trotting, rumpwagging,
blethering ass
As the dismantling
of the Ottoman Empire was finalised by the end of the war in late
January 1919, Bell was assigned to conduct an analysis of the
situation in Mesopotamia. Due to her familiarity and relations with
the tribes in the area she had strong ideas about the leadership
needed in Iraq. She spent the next ten months writing what was later
considered a masterly official report, "Self Determination in
Mesopotamia". The British Commissioner in Mesopotamia, Arnold
Wilson, had different ideas of how Iraq should be run, preferring an
Arab government to be under the influence of British officials who
would retain real control, as he felt, from experience, that
Mesopotamian populations were not yet ready to govern and administer
the country efficiently and peacefully.
On 11 October 1920,
Percy Cox returned to Baghdad and asked her to continue as Oriental
Secretary, acting as liaison with the forthcoming Arab government.
Gertrude Bell essentially played the role of mediator between the
Arab government and British officials. Bell often had to mediate
between the various groups of Iraq including a majority population of
Shias in the southern region, Sunnis in central Iraq, and the Kurds,
mostly in the northern region, who wished to be autonomous. Keeping
these groups united was essential for political balance in Iraq and
for British imperial interests. Iraq not only contained valuable
resources in oil but would act as a buffer zone, with the help of
Kurds in the north as a standing army in the region to protect
against Turkey, Persia (Iran), and Syria. British officials in
London, especially Churchill, were highly concerned about cutting
heavy costs in the colonies, including the cost of quashing tribal
infighting. Another important project for both the British and new
Iraqi rulers was creating a new identity for these people so that
they would identify themselves as one nation.
British officials
quickly realised that their strategies in governing were adding to
costs. Iraq would be cheaper as a self-governing state. The Cairo
Conference of 1921 was held to determine the political and geographic
structure of what later became Iraq and the modern Middle East.[28]
Significant input was given by Gertrude Bell in these discussions
thus she was an essential part of its creation. At the Cairo
Conference Bell and Lawrence highly recommended Faisal bin Hussein,
(the son of Hussein, Sherif of Mecca), former commander of the Arab
forces that helped the British during the war and entered Damascus at
the culmination of the Arab Revolt. He had been recently deposed by
France as King of Syria, and British officials at the Cairo
Conference decided to make him the first king of Iraq. They believed
that due to his lineage as a Hashemite and his diplomatic skills he
would be respected and have the ability to unite the various groups
in the country. Shias would respect him because of his lineage from
Muhammad. Sunnis, including Kurds, would follow him because he was
Sunni from a respected family. Keeping all the groups under control
in Iraq was essential to balance the political and economic interests
of the British Empire.
Upon Faisal's
arrival in 1921, Bell advised him in local questions, including
matters involving tribal geography and local business. She also
supervised the selection of appointees for cabinet and other
leadership posts in the new government.
Throughout the early
1920s Bell was an integral part of the administration of Iraq. The
new Hashemite monarchy used the Sharifian flag, which consisted of a
black stripe representing the Abbasid caliphate, white stripe
representing the Umayyad caliphate, and a green stripe for Fatimid
Dynasty, and lastly a red triangle to set across the three bands
symbolising Islam. Bell felt it essential to customise it for Iraq by
adding a gold star to the design.[29] Faisal was crowned king of Iraq
on 23 August 1921, but he was not completely welcomed. Utilizing
Shi'ite history to gain support for Faisal, during the holy month of
Muharram, Bell compared Faisal's arrival in Baghdad to Husayn,
grandson of Muhammad.
However, she did not
find working with the new king to be easy: "You may rely upon
one thing — I'll never engage in creating kings again; it's too
great a strain.
Bell briefly
returned to Britain in 1925, and found herself facing family problems
and ill health. Her family's fortune had begun to decline due to the
onset of post-World War I worker strikes in Britain and economic
depression in Europe. She returned to Baghdad and soon developed
pleurisy. When she recovered, she heard that her younger half brother
Hugh had died of typhoid.
On 12 July 1926,
Bell was discovered dead, of an apparent overdose of sleeping pills.
There is much debate on her death, but it is unknown whether the
overdose was an intentional suicide or accidental since she had asked
her maid to wake her.
She was buried at
the British cemetery in Baghdad's Bab al-Sharji district. Her
funeral was a major event, attended by large numbers of people
including her colleagues, British officials and the King of Iraq. It
was said King Faisal watched the procession from his private balcony
as they carried her coffin to the cemetery
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