Pessoa singular

Bell, (Sir) Harold Idris

1879-1967

British papyrologist and classicist; born in Epworth, Lincs., 2 October 1879, son of Charles Christopher Bell, who with an uncle owned a chemist's shop, and Rachel Hughes; he won a scholarship in Classics to Oriel College, Oxford, 1897, after being educated at Nottingham High School, and subsequently the Fraser Scholarship, 1901; he later studied at the Universities of Berlin and Halle; appointed Assistant in the Department of MSS in the British Museum, 1903; Deputy-Keeper of MSS, 1927, Keeper of the MSS and Edgerton Librarian, British Museum, 1929-44; Hon. Reader in Papyrology, Oxford, 1935-50; knighted, 1946; C.B., 1936; OBE, 1920; FBA; MA (Oxon); Hon. LL.D. (Liverpool); Hon. DLitt. (Wales, Michigan, Brussels); he married 1911, Mabel Winifred (d. 1967) daughter of Ernest Ayling; seconded to War Office Intelligence Dept., 1915; member of Committee of the Egypt Exploration Society, 1922-59; Hon. Sec. of same, 1923-27, and Vice President, 1945-67; corr. member of the Bavarian (1928), Bologna (1934), Belgian (1945), and Norwegain (1946), Acads. and of FÉRE, Brussels (1939); Member of Arch. Institut des Deutschen Reiches (1934); Associate Institut d'Égypte (1940); Foreign member of the American Philosophical Soc.. (1941); corr. member Acad. des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 1947; Soc. Royale d'Arch. d'Alexandrie, 1950; Österreichische Akad. der Wiss., 1955; Instituto Sudamericano de Asuntos Legales, 1957; Pres. Hon. Soc. of Cymmrodorion, 1947-53; Vice-Pres., 1953-67; Pres. Soc. for Promotion of Roman Studies, 1937-45; Vice Pres. 1945-67; Vice Pres. Soc. for Promotion of Hellenic Studies, 1930-67; Vice. Pres. Int. Council for Philosophy and Humanistic Studies, 1949-52; Pres. of Internat. Assoc. of Papyrologists, 1947-55; Hon. Pres., 1955-67; Hon. Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, 1936-67; Pres. of Brit. Acad., 1946-50; awarded Cymmrodorion Medal for services to Welsh literature, 1946; Hon. member, as Druid, of Welsh Gorsedd from 1949; during his keepership of MSS at the British Museum the Codex Sinaiticus and Luttrell Psalter were acquired, and despite official duties Bell found time to produce many works on his own special field, i.e. the Graeco-Roman papyri of Egypt; he was responsible with F. W. Kelsey of Michigan for organizing the Papyrus Syndicate, 1921, designed to buy and redistribute among its members specimens that came on the market; he retired to Aberystwyth in 1946 and he later gave his papyrological library to the National Library of Wales; his bibliography lists over 100 items, 19 separate publications, about 93 articles etc. and 9 obituaries; from this very varied output the following are selected as being among the most important, vols. III (with Sir F. Kenyon), IV and V of The Catalogue of Greek Papyri in the British Museum, 1907, 1910, 1917; Wadi Sarga (with W. E. Crum and introduction by R. Campbell Thompson), 1922; Jews and Christians in Egypt, 1924; Pt. XVI of The Oxyrhynchus Papyri (with B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt), 1924; Pt. XIX ibid (with E. Lobel, E. P. Wegener, and C. H. Roberts), 1948; Juden and Griechen im romischen Alexandreia, 1926; Fragments of an unknown gospel and other Early Christian Papyri (with T. C. Skeat), 1935; New Gospel Fragments, 1935; Recent discoveries of Biblical Papyri, an inaugural lecture delivered before the University of Oxford, 18 November 1936, 1937; A Descriptive Catalogue of the Greek Papyri in the Collection of Wilfred Merton, F.S.A. (with C. H. Roberts), vol. I, 1948; vol. II (with B. R. Rees and others), 1958; Egypt from Alexander the Great to the Arab Conquest, 1948; Cults and Creeds in Graeco-Roman Egypt, 1953; The Abinnaeus Archive (with V. Martin, E. G. Turner, and D. van Berchem), 1962; he edited the EES Graeco-Roman memoirs and also contributed to the 9th edition of Liddell and Scott's Greek Lexicon, and produced the large and very comprehensive bibliographies on Graeco-Roman Egypt (Papyri) in JEA 1914-25; his contributions to the Cambridge Ancient History appear in vols. X and XI; he died in Aberystwyth, 22 January 1967.

• Who Was Who in Egyptology (5th ed. 2019), 43-44 fig. (portrait).