Who's Who	Index	Who's Who

Sir Lowthian Bell
Source: Transactions of the Institute of Mining Engineers

Links to other pages on this site

11 Jan 1861	—	Newspaper article (The Hetton Colliery Explosion)
07 Feb 1863	—	Newspaper article (Letters to the Editor)
21 Dec 1904	—	Newspaper article (Obituary)

Commercial/Trade Directory

Page 47: Newcastle - Bell, Isaac Lothian, Losh, Wilson & Bell; res: Long Benton
Source: Ward's Northumberland and Durham Directory, 1850

Census

Address: Newcastle, St. Andrews

(Ref: HO107/2405/269)

Name	Age	Rel	Mar	Occupation	Where Born
BELL, Isaac L.	35	Head	Mar
BELL, Margaret	30	Wife	Mar
BELL, Thomas H.	7	Son
BELL, Margaret F.	3	Dau
BELL, Mary K.	2	Dau
BELL, Ada P.	10m	Dau

Membership

1853-1854, North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers. Position: Member; Address: Washington, Gateshead.

Biographical Notes

Birth, at Washington, the wife of <@>I. L. Bell, esq., Mayor of Newcastle, of a son. In commemoration of this felicitous event Mrs. Bell was presented in April, 1856, by the members of the council, with a massive silver salver and claret jug, manufactured by Messrs. Reid and Sons.
Source: Local Records (Fordyce)

Commercial/Trade Directory

Page 231: Newcastle - Bell, Isaac Lothian, (Washington Chemical Co.); ho. Washington
Source: History, Topography, and Directory of Northumberland by William Whellan & Co. Published in 1855.

Membership

1864-1865, North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers. Position: Member; Address: Washington, County of Durham.

1864-1865, North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers. Position: Council Member; Address: Washington, County of Durham.

Membership

1870-1871, North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers. Position: Member; Address: Washington, Washington Station, N.E. Railway (Vice-President); Elected: 06 Jul 1854

1870-1871, North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers. Position: Vice President; Address: Washington, Washington Station, N.E. Railway.

Membership

1880-1881, North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers. Position: Member; Address: Rounton Grange, Northallerton; Elected: 06 Jul 1854

Census

Address: 82 Harley Street, St Marylebone, London

(Ref: RG11/140/22/37)

Name	Age	Rel	Mar	Occupation	Where Born
STANLEY, Edward L. (Hon)	41	Head	Mar	Barrister Not Practicing M. P.	MDX: St Georges
STANLEY, Mary K.	32	Wife	Mar		NBL: Long Benton
STANLEY, Henrietta M.	7	Dau		Scholar	MDX: Marylebone
STANLEY, Arthur L.	5	Son		Scholar	MDX: Marylebone
STANLEY, Edward L.J.	2	Son			MDX: Marylebone
STANLEY, Olivia H.	1	Dau			MDX: Marylebone
STANLEY, Katherine F.	2m	Dau			MDX: Marylebone
BELL, Isaac L.	65	Visitor	Mar	Magistrate Deputy Lieutenant Iron Master	NBL: Newcastle On Tyne
BOWEN, Hannah	34	Servant	Unn	Palour Maid Domestic	WLS
TOOGOOD, Emily	22	Servant	Unn	Cook Domestic	MDX: Poplar
GILLINGHAM, Amelia	23	Servant	Unn	Housemaid Domestic	GLS: Bristol
BURCHETT, Annie	39	Servant	Wid	Nurse Domestic	KEN: Canterbury
ROBINSON, Martha	17	Servant	Unn	Nurserymaid Domestic	MDX: Hackney
HAYWARD, Caroline	19	Servant	Unn	Nurserymaid Domestic	MDX: London
ACRES, Mary A.	19	Servant	Unn	Kitchenmaid Domestic	MDX: St Pancras

Membership

1888-1889, North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers. Position: Council; Address: D.C.L., F.R.S., Rounton Grange, Northallerton.

1888-1889, North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers. Position: Member; Address: D.C.L., F.R.S., F.C.S., Rounton Grange, Northallerton (Past-President, Mem. of Council); Elected: 06 Jul 1854

Membership

1889-1890, Institute of Mining Engineers. Position: Member; Address: D.C.L., Rounton Grange, Northallerton.

1889-1890, Institute of Mining Engineers. Position: Vice-President; Address: Rounton Grange. Northallerton.

Membership

1896-1897, Institute of Mining Engineers. Position: Member; Address: Rounton Grange, Northallerton.

1896-1897, Institute of Mining Engineers. Position: Vice President; Address: Rounton Grange, Northallerton.

Membership

1900-1901, Institute of Mining Engineers. Position: Council Member; Address: Rounton Grange, Northallerton

Membership

1902-1903, Institute of Mining Engineers. Position: Vice President; Address: Rounton Grange, Northallerton

Biographical Notes

We regret to announce that the veteran ironmaster and metallurgist, Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, died at his residence, Rounton Grange, Northallerton, yesterday morning, within a few weeks of completing his 80th year. He was born on February 15, 1815, at Newcastle, his father being an ironmaster, Mr. Thomas Bell, and his mother, a daughter of Mr. Isaac Lowthian, of Newbiggin, in Cumberland. After attending Edinburgh University and the Sorbonne, he spent some time in travel on the Continent, and then, at the age of 24, entered the Walker ironworks, near Newcastle, in which his father was a partner. There he remained until 1850, when he became connected with the chemical works at Washington, in North Durham. Under his direction these became one of the most important concerns of their kind in the North of England. He greatly enlarged them and laid down extensive plant for the manufacture of an oxychloride of lead introduced as a substitute for white lead by his father-in-law, Mr. H. L. Pattinson, F.R.S., with whom he was associated in the business at Washington. There, too, was introduced in 1860 almost the first plant in England for the manufacture of aluminium by the Deville sodium process.

Soon after the discovery of the main bed of Cleveland ironstone near Middlesbrough by John Vaughan in 1830, in conjunction with his brothers, Thomas and John, he started ironworks at Port Clarence, on the north bank of the Tees. A little more than half a century ago the site of Port Clarence was a waste of mud and marsh — in fact, the Tees then flooded ground where iron furnaces now stand. Much land in the estuary has since been reclaimed — largely by means of the "cinder balls" from the furnaces, which were used to build retaining walls — and on a portion of this were placed the iron-smelting works of Bell Brothers, among the largest in the Cleveland district. From the first they were carried on in an enterprising and economical spirit. To most people the site upon which they were erected would have seemed unpromising enough, yet it fact it had facilities for land and water carriage and possibilities of extension at very reasonable expense. The firm acquired their own ironstone mines, collieries, and limestone quarries, while they have always been prompt to adopt any improvement in process or apparatus that has seemed likely to be advantageous. For example, when it was found that economy in fuel resulted from increase in the height of blast furnaces, they reconstructed their plant in view of that fact, and they were among the first in the Cleveland district to take advantage of the saving effected by the use of the waste gases for heating the blast. In the development of the Cleveland iron industry they thus played a very important part, and what has been the extent of that development may be judged from the fact that, whereas the district in 1850 produced less than 25,000 tons of pig iron, at the present time Middlesbrough accounts for about one quarter of the total output of this country. Not only were they largely responsible for the surveys which revealed the position and extent of the ironstone beds, but they were active in prosecuting those technical studies by which processes have been devised enabling Cleveland ores to compete as raw material for the production of iron and steel with others possessing greater natural advantages. In regard to steel, the great trouble with those ores is the high percentage and phosphorous (1.8 to 2.0 per cent) contained in the cast iron which they yield ; yet Middlesbrough, largely as a result of experiments carried on under Sir Lowthian Bell's direction, at a cost, it is said, of between £40,000 and £50,000, produces steel rails in which this percentage is reduced to 0.07 or less. Many thousand tons of such basic steel rails have been laid on the North-Eastern Railway, of which he was a director, and the careful records kept of their behaviour convinced him that neither in loss of weight by wear nor in the number of breakages do they give any ground for complaint. In connection with rails it is interesting to note, as an illustration of the advances made during his exceptionally long and active life, that he could remember seeing wooden rails in use on the tramroads by which coal was brought down to the river Tees. Middlesbrough steel has also been rendered available for shipbuilding purposes, and as chairman of the company he had, in 1901, the satisfaction of announcing that the product of the Clarence Works fulfilled all the requirements of Lloyd's Registry.

Sir Lowthian Bell had an intimate knowledge, both on the scientific and statistical sides, of the iron and coal deposits of the North of England. When the British Association met at Newcastle in 1863, he contributed a paper on the manufacture of iron in connection with the Northumberland and Durham coalfields, in which he calculated that the supply contained in that coalfield was just about sufficient to smelt the ironstone in the main Cleveland seam, supposing none of it to be used for any other purpose. His aptitude for statistics was also shown in other ways. In 1870 he wrote a paper, bristling with facts and figures, on the sanitary condition of Newcastle, and more recently he compiled an elaborate account of the iron trade of the United Kingdom, compared with that of the other chief iron-making countries. On the chemistry of iron he was very high — if not the highest — authority. The establishment of a chemical laboratory in connection with the Clarence works shows how fully he realised the importance of the scientific study of industrial processes, and his own researches on the chemistry of iron and steel, some of which have been translated into French and German, have become classic. Many of the most important of these appeared first in the form of papers read before the Iron and Steel Institute, and a number of them were subsequently collected and published in a thick volume entitled "The Chemical Phenomena of Iron Smelting." Sir Lowthian was also the author of a book on the "Principles of Iron and Steel Manufacture," as well as of many papers contributed to other scientific societies.

In the Iron and Steel Institute he took a great interest. One of its original founders in 1869, he filled the office of president from 1873 to 1875, and in 1874 became the first recipient of the gold medal instituted by Sir Henry Bessemer the year before. Among the learned societies he was a member of the Civil Engineers and of the Chemical Society, and a past president of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. In a presidential address to the Institution of Junior Engineers in 1900, he gave a short account of the development of the iron trade, and after claiming that Great Britain had been almost the sole author of the improvements that had raised the industry to its present position, declined to admit that our reduced production was due to any inferiority in methods of manufacture. In 1874, the Royal Society made him one of their number, and he had the distinction of being elected an honorary member of the American Philosophical Institution. In the municipal affairs of Newcastle he took a prominent part, having been a member of the Town Council for many years, and having held the mayoralty twice ; and he was a director of the North-Eastern Railway. He was a J.P. and D.L. for the county of Durham and served as sheriff in 1884. He made several attempts to enter Parliament, but was somewhat unfortunate. He contested North Durham in 1858, but was defeated. Six years afterwards he stood again for the same constituency, and was returned at the head of the poll. The election, however, was held void on the ground that intimidation had been practiced at certain places, and at the new election thus rendered necessary Sir Lowthian Bell was at the bottom of the poll. In the following year (1875) success attended his efforts at Hartlepool, for which he sat in the Liberal interest till 1880. The honour of a baronetcy was conferred on him in 1885, and in 1893 he received the degree of LL.D. for Edinburgh University.

Sir Lowthain married, in 1842, Margaret, the second daughter of Mr. H. L. Pattinson, by whom he had six children. The title goes to Mr. Hugh Bell, born in 1844, whose wife, daughter of the late Sir Joseph Olliffe, M.D., is well known as the writer of several novels and of a number of plays, both in English and French, some of which have been produced in London, including l'Indecis, produced by Coqualin at the Royalty in 1887. One of Sir Lowthian's daughters is the present Lady Stanley of Alderlay.

The funeral of Sir Lowthian Bell will take place privately at Rounton on Friday, and simultaneously a memorial service will be held at Middlesbrough.

Source: The Times Newspaper

  Research Notes for Isaac Lowthian Bell, Sir

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