In 1904 Hugh Bell inherited £750,000 from his father’s estate; £45 million ($81 million), RPI-adjusted.
Gertrude budgeted her journey to Hayyil in 1913 at £601 (including the cost of travelling back through the Syrian desert); this is £35,000 ($59,477), RPI-adjusted. Her seventeen camels with their equipment at £13 each cost £221, but this was recoverable when they were sold after the journey—about £13,000 ($23,400) today. She described the cost of the journey, a net £23,000 ($40,000) today, as practically the whole of her income for the following year. This income derived from investments and proceeds from her books as well as an allowance from her father.
Lawrence’s offer of £2 million to the Turkish army commander to lift his siege of Kut would be about £100 million ($180 million) today and was about the same amount as Churchill arranged for the British Admiralty to pay for 51 per cent of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1914. In 1921, Churchill aimed to reduce British military expenditure in Iraq from £20 million to £7 million a year, in today’s terms a reduction of £287 million ($517 million), RPI-adjusted. By 1921 the British administration of Iraq had spent £8 million governing and developing the country, all raised from local taxes: £200 million ($360 million), RPI-adjusted.
Gertrude’s government salary in 1925 was £835 a year: £69,000 ($124,000), RPI-adjusted, but £120,000 ($216,000) if inflated by the change in U.K. average-earnings. Her bequest of £6,000 to found a British School of Archaeology in Iraq would be £208,000 ($374,000) today.
NOTES
ABBREVIATIONS USED IN SOURCE NOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
DUL
Durham University Library
RL
Robinson Library, University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Extracts have been taken from Gertrude Bell’s letters to her family, held in the Robinson Library, University of Newcastle (RL); these extracts are identified as “GLB letters.” “Gertrude hardly ever dated her letters except by the day of the week, sometimes not even that,” wrote her stepmother, Florence, when she was compiling The Letters of Gertrude Bell (London: Ernest Benn, 1927) after her death. A great many of the letters can be found in Lady Bell’s book.
Extracts are also taken from Gertrude Bell’s diaries, identified as “GLB diary,” also held by the University of Newcastle.
Copies of Gertrude’s papers are littered with crossed-out pencilled dates and question marks, evidence of the many attempts by curators to determine their sequence.
The letters and diaries are available at www.gerty.ncl.ac.uk
Occasionally, to make a point more forcefully, two or more quotations from different letters or texts of Gertrude Bell have been brought together in the narrative and occasionally brought forward.
PREFACE
xviii “She was, I think, the greatest woman of our time”: Janet E. Courtney, An Oxford Portrait Gallery
1. GERTRUDE AND FLORENCE
3 “Sharif’s son Faisal offers hope”: Janet Wallach, Desert Queen, p. 297
4 “from a needle to a ship”: From Sir Hugh Bell’s speech of 10 Jan. 1910, during his campaign for a Liberal parliamentary seat
5 Lowthian wrote several scientific books: Papers on Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell discovered at Mount Grace Priory
5 a comprehensive and logical assessment: The Iron Trade of the United Kingdom, Literary and Philosophical Society, Gallery, 669–1/13: 1875
6 An illustrated family alphabet: In the possession of Dr. William Plowden
6 “Your scones are lovely”: Anecdote about Margaret Bell, in conversation with Mrs. Susanna Richmond
8 “Free Trade is like the quality of mercy”: From Hugh Bell’s campaign speech of 10 Jan. 1910
10 They met the twenty-two-year-old Florence : Biographical details about Florence Bell from Kirsten Wang, “Deeds and Words: The Biography of Dame Florence Bell, 1851–1930,” unpublished MS in the possession of Dr. William Plowden
11 “looking beautiful, but very sad”: Florence’s daughter Elsa, Lady Richmond, reporting a conversation with her mother, in Wang, “Deeds and Words”
11 One biographer of Gertrude : Anne Tibble, One Woman’s Story
11 “succeed in almost excluding”: R. Russell, London Fogs
12 “What a privilege to be born in Paris”: Florence Bell, shortly before she died, in Wang, “Deeds and Words”
12 “Lady Olliffe . . . I have brought your daughter home”: Lady Richmond reporting a conversation with her mother, Florence Bell, ibid.
13 “If you would like to finish your conversation”: Mrs. Susanna Richmond, in conversation
15 “The girl was ill at ease”: From Florence Bell, The Story of Ursula
16 “The abiding influence”: Florence Bell, The Letters of Gertrude Bell, introduction
18 “My poney behaved like a brute”: GLB letter, 1881, from Gertrude to her cousin Horace Marshall
20 “I remember as if it were yesterday”: Letter to her daughter Molly, Lady Trevelyan, in Wang, “Deeds and Words”
20 “We now have out some yellow crocus”: GLB’s first diary, 1878
22 “I cannot remember her speak in a harsh way”: Molly Trevelyan in Wang, “Deeds and Words”
23 “However valuable the intellectual wares”: Florence Bell, in her essay, “On the Better Teaching of Manners,” ibid.
25 “My mother’s idea of the equipment required”: Ibid.
25 “It was the Trinity ball”: Virginia Stephen, in a letter to Emma Vaughan, June 1900, in Stephen, Flight of the Mind, vol. 1, p. 34
26 “Gertrude is being rather thorny”: Molly Bell in Lesley Gordon, Gertrude Bell 1868–1926, exhibition booklet, 1994, RL
2. EDUCATION
28 “My darling, dearest Mother”: Lady Elsa Richmond, ed., The Earlier Letters of Gertrude Bell
28 His “deaf and stupid” sister Bessie : Details of life at 95 Sloane Street as recounted by Lady Richmond, in Wang, “Deeds and Words”
29 Queen’s College in Harley Street : From the sesquicentenary leaflet, Queen’s College, 1848–1998, 1998
29 “I don’t like Rubens”: GLB letter, in Anne Tibble, Gertrude Bell; Tibble had been in service at Rounton
29 “I wish I could go to the National”: GLB letter
30 “I waded through [your letter]”: GLB letter
30 “It’s a very disagreeable process”: GLB letter
31 “I don’t believe a word of it!” : GLB letter
31 “The fault of my essay”: GLB letter
31 “Fancy the amount more books”: GLB letter
32 “I’ve done Milton most of today”: GLB letter
32 “I felt rather guilty”: From Gordon, Gertrude Bell
32 “I may say to you I suppose”: GLB letter to her father
35 the Winter Garden : From William Lillie, The History of Middlesbrough
36 “I have had enough of these dinners”: GLB letter
38 “I am going to a teaparty”: GLB letter
38 Herbert Spencer . . . Dean John Burgon : Wallach, Desert Queen, p. 20
39 “The amount of work is hopeless”: GLB letter
39 “I am sorry, but it is on the right bank”: Josephine Kamm, Gertrude Bell, p. 52
39 “I’m afraid I must differ”: Incident recalled by Mr. Arthur Hassall of Christchurch, Oxford; in Florence Bell, Letters
40 “There’s a reading party”: GLB letter
40 “She was, I think, the most brilliant creature”: Courtney, Oxford Portrait Gallery
3. THE CIVILIZED WOMAN
43 “The King was”: Letter to Horace Marshall, 1889
43 “You can’t think how charming”: GLB letter
44 “You dance nothing through”: GLB letter
45 “Il me semble, Monsieur” [It seems to me, Sir, that you do not understand the German mind]: Florence Bell, Letters, p. 21
45 “It was perfectly delicious”: GLB letter
46 “I went into the gardens”: GLB letter
46 “About the little girls’ frocks”: GLB let
ter
47 “Do you remember discussing”: GLB letter
48 “Billy and I sat in the garden”: GLB letter
48 “I discussed religious beliefs”: GLB letter
48 “I don’t think many of our watchful acquaintances”: GLB letter
48 “I sat on a bench”: GLB letter
49 “the critic” : GLB letter
50 “Oh the desert around Teheran!”: GLB to Horace Marshall, 18 June 1892
51 “Are we the same people”: Ibid.
51 “In this country”: Ibid.
52 “tall and red and very thin”: GLB letter
52 “It certainly is unexpected”: GLB letter
53 “Mr. Cadogan and I”: GLB letter
53 “Before we had gone far”: Gertrude Bell, Persian Pictures, “The Tower of Silence”
53 “Here they come to throw off”: Ibid.
53 “Life seized us and inspired us”: Ibid.
54 Gertrude had been an interested eavesdropper : GLB diary, 30 Oct. 1889
55 “Our position is very difficult”: GLB letter
56 “Took a carriage”: GLB letter
57 “She had not yet reached the stage”: Florence Bell, Letters, p. 34
58 “My Pundit”: GLB letter
59 “The spirit of poetry”: Florence Bell, Letters, p. 36
4. BECOMING A PERSON
62 “It was the most gorgeous show”: GLB diary, 29 Dec. 1902
63 “I suppose you don’t approve of this plan”: Bishop of St. Albans to GLB, in Florence Bell, Letters
64 “Please send first hemistich”: Recounted by E. Denison Ross in the preface to Gertrude Lowthian Bell, trans., The Teachings of Hafiz
64 “We went on a switch-back”: GLB letter, 1903
66 “I pitched my camp”: GLB letter
66 “When we reached the level”: GLB letter
66 “meadows full”: GLB letter
67 “I walked over the tiny alp”: GLB letter
67 “My Japanese trees”: GLB to Chirol, 25 Dec. 1900
67 “I am sending you a little packet”: GLB letter
68 “Reginald Farrer, the Colliers, and Mr. Herbert”: GLB letter, 28 May 1903. Details on Reginald Farrer from Nicola Schulman, A Rage for Rock Gardening
69 “I have spent most of the afternoons”: GLB to Chirol, 22 Apr. 1910
69 “If you look with the eye of faith”: GLB to Chirol, 21 Nov. 1912
71 “Last night I went to a delightful party”: GLB letter, 28 Oct. 1908
72 “We have Lady Jersey as chairman”: GLB letter, Oct. 1908
72 “Life was nearly wrecked for a month”: GLB to Chirol, 21 Nov. 1912
5. MOUNTAINEERING
Descriptions of Gertrude’s climbs were aided by photographs and information from the following websites: www.summitpost.org, www.clasohm.com, www.peakware.com, www.panoramas.dk, www.ski-zermatt.com, www.caingram.info, www.women climbing.com, www.en.wikipedia.org.
74 “It was awful”: GLB letter
76 “Elsa and Papa stayed on”: GLB diary, 7 Aug. 1897
77 “I gave my skirt to Marius”: Gordon, Gertrude Bell, “Gertrude Bell as a Mountaineer”
77 “We had about two hours”: GLB letter
78 “There were two little lumps to hold on to”: GLB letter
79 “I was now in rags”: Elizabeth Burgoyne, Gertrude Bell from Her Personal Papers, 1889–1914, p. 68
80 “I am a Person!”: GLB letter
80 “Ulrich is as pleased as Punch”: Gordon, Gertrude Bell, “Gertrude Bell as a Mountaineer”
81 “I was beginning to think”: GLB letter
82 “We decided on a place”: GLB letter
83 “The lower third”: GLB letter
84 “He called out”: GLB letter
84 “The fact was”: GLB letter
85 “This proved quite easy”: GLB letter
85 “It was an enchanting house”: GLB letter
85 “What do you think”: GLB letter
86 “There is another climbing woman here”: GLB letter
87 “This morning I started out”: GLB letter
87 “The great points”: GLB letter
87 “I got back on my feet”: GLB letter
88 “I shall remember every inch”: GLB letter
88 “We were standing”: GLB letter
89 “The golden rule”: GLB letter
89 “As there was no further precaution”: GLB letter
89 “When things are as bad as ever”: GLB letter
89 “We managed badly”: GLB letter
90 “It was a near thing”: GLB letter
90 “That was the only moment”: GLB letter
92 “Every night, do you understand”: Edward Whymper, Scrambles Among the Alps in the Years 1860–69
92 “I look back to it”: GLB letter
92 “. . . more like sliding down”: GLB letter
6. DESERT TRAVEL
94 “Miss Gertrude Bell knows more”: Letter from Lord Cromer to Sir Henry McMahon, British High Commissioner in Egypt, 1915
96 “My apartment consists”: GLB letter, Hotel Jerusalem, 13 Dec. 1899
96 “I spent the morning unpacking”: Ibid.
97 “I may say in passing”: GLB letter
97 “a charming little horse”: GLB letter
98 “The chief comfort of this journey”: GLB letter
99 “Rode out in very bad spirits”: GLB diary, 23 Jan. 1900
99 “sheets and sheets”: GLB letter
99 “The women are unveiled”: GLB letter
100 “Don’t think I have ever spent”: GLB letter
101 “What the people in Wady Musa live on”: GLB letter
101 “. . . the charming façade”: GLB letter
101 “a surprising lot of long black”: GLB letter
101 “. . . the fire of dry thorns flickered up”: GLB letter
103 “ ‘Where was I going?’ ” : GLB letter
104 “The women were filling their”: GLB letter
104 “The sense of comfort”: GLB letter
104 “He is the most perfect type”: GLB letter
105 “They were a group of the most beautiful”: GLB letter
105 “We bought a lamb”: GLB letter
105 “I’m very proud of this contrivance”: GLB letter
106 “It’s the greatest relief”: GLB letter
106 “It is at times a very odd sensation”: GLB letter
107 “I wish I could manage to travel”: GLB letter
108 “Their sheikh, Muhammad”: GLB letter
108 “He sang to it”: GLB letter
108 “Back I went”: GLB letter
109 “Sheikh Muhammad had only twenty”: GLB letter
109 “You know, dearest Father”: GLB letter
109 “I am so wildly interested”: GLB letter
109 “I am much entertained”: GLB letter
111 she became a skilled photographer : Photographic details from Mr. Jim Crow, School of Historical Studies, Newcastle University
112 “Yesterday . . . in the evening I went”: GLB letter, one Saturday, Oct. 1907
113 “I went shopping with the Stanleys”: GLB letter, Monday, 7 Nov. 1904
114 “Reinach has simply set”: GLB letter
114 “the mud was incredible”: GLB letter, 1 Feb. 1905
115 “My host”: GLB letter
116 “I produced the Muallakat”: GLB letter
116 “I could not help regretting”: GLB letter
116 “I too contributed”: GLB letter
116 “Tomorrow the Druzes are going forth”: GLB letter
117 “ ‘Oh Lord our God! Upon them!’ ”: GLB letter
117 “. . . it was more abominable than”: GLB letter
117–18 “The real triumph of eloquence”: GLB letter
118 “Islam is the greatest republic”: GLB letter
118 “Tiresome, for I was never”: GLB letter
118 “The devil take all Syrian in
scriptions!”: GLB letter
119 “There was nothing for it”: GLB letter
119 “Fattuh, bless him!”: GLB letter
120 “We fell into each other’s arms”: GLB letter
120 “Race, culture, art”: GLB letter
120 “Did I tell you I was writing”: GLB to Chirol
124 “I need not have hidden the cartridges”: GLB letter, Jan. 1909
124 “No one knows of it”: GLB letter
125 “An interesting boy”: GLB letter, 18 Apr. 1911
126 “The whole world shone like a jewel”: From Gordon, Gertrude Bell, “Desert Journeys and Archaeology,” RL
7. DICK DOUGHTY-WYLIE
127 “Braver soldier”: Tribute by Sir Ian Hamilton to Doughty-Wylie, in Diana Condell, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Doughty-Wylie VC CMG—Sedd el Bahr and Hill 141, www.iwm.org.uk
128 “The seas and the hills”: GLB letter, 28 Apr. 1907
128 “It was surrounded by”: GLB letter, 1 May 1907
128 “I did all I knew”: Ibid.
129 “We think we have a Hittite settlement!”: GLB letter, 25 May
129 Dick Doughty-Wylie had been educated: Facts about Doughty-Wylie from Army List
133 “The nearer I came to it”: GLB to Chirol, Jan. 1913, DUL
137–55 “My Dear Gertrude” . . . 13 Aug. 1913 to 24 Apr. 1915, “So many memories, my dear queen, of you”: Letters from Doughty-Wylie until the day before he was killed at Gallipoli. There is a smaller number of letters from GLB to him, returned to her on the eve of the battle, RL
153 “My dear Jean”: From Doughty-Wylie to Mrs. H. H. Coe, in the papers of Mrs. L. O. Doughty-Wylie, Department of Documents, Imperial War Museum
157 Elsa, now Lady Richmond: Elizabeth Burgoyne, Gertrude Bell from Her Personal Papers, 1914–1926
157 Towards the end of 1915: For accounts of the missing days: L. A. Carlyon, Gallipoli; Michael Hickey, Gallipoli; Eric Wheeler Bush, Gallipoli
157 L. A. Carlyon: In his book Gallipoli
158 different version of events: Hickey, Gallipoli
158 According to her diaries: The Department of Documents, Imperial War Museum
Gertrude Bell Page 54