Gertrude Bell

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Gertrude Bell Page 54

by Georgina Howell


  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

 

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