12:12pm Monday 12th July 2010
The extraordinary Victorian traveller and archaeologist who drew up the borders of modern Iraq died 84 years ago this week. And yet Gertrude Bell is in danger of being forgotten in her native North-East, the writer who has organised an exhibition tells Sharon Griffiths.
GERTRUDE Bell’s life would make a fantastic film. The only problem would be that it might seem a little far fetched...
Born in Washington New Hall, County Durham, in 1868, into a family of ironmasters, she grew up in Redcar and near Northallerton. One of the first women to study at Oxford, she was one of their most brilliant students.
Gertrude was an intrepid traveller and mountaineer, accomplished rider, wrote travel books, spoke seven languages, including Persian and Arabic, was an archaeologist – founding Baghdad’s museum – became trusted by tribal leaders, worked with Lawrence of Arabia, and in intelligence operations in Cairo, was part of the British legation in Basra, then in Baghdad, liaised with Kurds, Shi’as and Sunnis, helped create a king, advised a queen on fashion, shaped the politics of the Middle East and drew up the borders of modern Iraq.
She also had a passionate affair with a married man, translated Persian poetry and found time to keep a detailed diary and write more than 1,600 sparkling letters to family and friends. And to enjoy a reasonable social life of dinners, swimming parties, polo, riding, tennis and order her dresses from Harvey Nichols.
“She was the most amazing woman,” says writer Jan Long, “inspiring and passionate, yet she is in danger of being forgotten, even in her native North East.”
To help redress the balance Jan has organised An Encounter With Gertrude Bell event at the Red Barns Hotel in Redcar – originally Gertrude Bell’s childhood home until the family moved to Rounton Grange.
In between her world travels Gertrude Bell returned home regularly to Rounton Grange, near Northallerton, often bringing plants back, including a cedar tree, from the Middle East.
Jan Long was Regional Director of the British Council in the North East when she discovered Gertrude Bell.
“Her letters are in Newcastle university.
My husband knew of her as he is a Middle East specialist – in fact he once had the office next to what had been hers in the British embassy in Baghdad – and I just thought this woman is so interesting,” she says.
She spent the next two years researching the Bell trail. Now retired, she lectures on Gertrude Bell, has organised this exhibition and is writing a novel about her and, with Dr Graham Best, producing a book on Gertrude Bell’s life in pictures.
“I just don’t want her to be forgotten.
Everyone knows about Lawrence of Arabia, but her story is even more amazing. She had done so much. Even the translations of poetry she did were wonderful and have never been improved on. I went to India because part of her will is held in the Delhi archive. So many of her papers were scattered at her death.”
When Gertrude Bell went to what was still known as Mesopotamia, the Ottoman empire had collapsed and the problem was – as we know too well today – how to create an independent state out of the warring provinces of Mosul, Baghdad and Basra.
Astonishingly for a woman at that time, Gertrude Bell had travelled among the tribal chiefs, got to know them and had won their respect.
“Miss Bell” was known and revered.
She worked with the British high commissioner Baghdad, Sir Percy Cox, and was responsible for relations with the Arab population.
“She won the trust of tribes because she knew the area, could speak the language. And she was accepted by the British because they realised she could do the job,” says Jan.
One of her superiors once recommended her by saying: “I am sending you Miss Bell. She might be a woman but she has the brain of a man.”
HER diaries and letters reveal a sharp understanding of the problems of the Middle East that still resonate with relevance today. And it was she who drew up the borders of the new state of Iraq.
“Hers was one of a number of suggestions put forward. Hers was chosen and ultimately it was sanctioned by Winston Churchill, so it’s not fair to blame her entirely for today’s problems,”
says Jan.
Previous biographers of Gertrude Bell have claimed that she died a virgin.
“Not true!” says Jan. “She had a long affair with an married army officer, Charles Doughty-Wylie and there are letters which seem to talk of a pregnancy. But, of course, all that would have been hushed up for the sake of his family.”
While fascinating, she might also have been a bit tricky to know. “She could be arrogant, I think, and certainly didn’t suffer fools easily but she went from that to being quite tender,”
says Jan. She was also, surprisingly, a member of the Anti-Suffrage League, believing that most women’s interests didn’t stray beyond kitchen and bedroom and were too ill educated to use a vote wisely.
Gertrude Bell died in Baghdad on July 12, 1926, just two days before her 58th birthday, from an overdose of sleeping pills.
Jan refuses to believe she did so deliberately and doubts that it was an accident. “I have my own conspiracy theories on that one,” she says.
“But wouldn’t it make a fantastic film?”
■ Gertrude’s Bells letters and diaries at Newcastle University can now be viewed online at gerty.ncl.ac.uk. They make great reading.
■ An Encounter with Gertrude Bell includes a photographic exhibition, talk, and the launch of a book by Dr Graham Best on Gertrude Bell’s translation of the Persian poet Hafiz. Drink and nibbles. Entry free.
Redbarns Hotel, Redcar, 6pm, Friday, July 16. Sir John (Gertrude’s great nephew) and Lady Venitia Bell and other family members will be attending. On Saturday, July 17, there will be a tour of Redbarns and a Gertrude Bell trail, including St Lawrence church where there is a stained glass memorial window passing Mount Grace Priory, where the family lived after they left Rounton Grange, a visit to site where Rounton Grange once stood and where the neglected grounds still show some of the landscaping done by Gertrude Bell.
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