Royal Commonwealth Society : Pencil sketches of Carib artefacts

Bell, Sir, Henry Hesketh Joudou, 1864-1952, Knight, colonial governor

Royal Commonwealth Society

Sir Henry Hesketh Joudou Bell was born at Chambery in the Savoie district of south-east France on 17 December 1864. Bell was privately educated in the Channel Islands, and in Paris and Brussels. In 1882 a family friend Sir William Robinson offered him the post of third clerk in the office of the Governor of Barbados and the Leeward Islands and he arrived in Barbados in May of that year. In the following year he transferred to the Grenada Inland Revenue Department and worked there until 1889. After an unsuccessful attempt to find employment under the Egyptian Government, Bell was Supervisor of Customs in the Gold Coast from 1890-94, when he became Receiver General and Treasurer of the Bahamas. After applying for the administratorship of the Seychelles in 1899, he was offered St. Kitts-Nevis, but later agreed to serve in Dominica where he was administrator from 1899-1906. It was during this period that Bell started his experimental plantation Sylvania, evolved a system of hurricane insurance, and continued his researches into witchcraft in the West Indies. Bell left the West Indies in 1906 to take up the post of Commissioner of the Uganda Protectorate (a title changed to Governor in the following year) and his period there was memorable for his development of the cotton industry and near-eradication of sleeping sickness in the country around Lake Victoria.In 1909 he was appointed Governor of Northern Nigeria, and was transferred to the Leeward Islands, Bell remained in the Leeward Islands from 1912-16, when he was made Governor of Mauritius, a post he held until his retirement in 1924.After his retirement Bell lived in Cannes but travelled widely and in 1925-26 made an extensive semi-official tour of the Far East to study French and Dutch systems of colonial government. The resulting book, 'Foreign colonial administration in the Far East' (1928), was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Empire Society. During the Second World War, Bell returned to live in the Bahamas, but was a frequent visitor to London and died there on 1st August 1952. A prolific author, Bell's published work includes memoirs, imaginative fiction and colonial history and administration. The most important of these are: 'Obeah: witchcraft in the West Indies' (1893), 'A witch's legacy' (1893), 'The history, trade, resources and present condition of the Gold Coast settlement' (1893), 'Outlines of the geography of the Gold Coast Colony and Protectorate' (1894), 'Love in black' (1911), 'Glimpses of a Governor's life' (1946), 'Witches and fishes' (1948). He was in addition a tireless contributor to newspapers, journals and magazines.The collection was bequeathed to Mrs A. Llewellin-Taylour, for eventual deposit in the Royal Commonwealth Society. It was handed over by her executors in 1968.