Bell, I. Lowthian (Isaac Lowthian), 1816-1904

Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, 1st Baronet, FRS (18 February 1816 – 20 December 1904) was a Victorian ironmaster and Liberal Party politician from Washington, County Durham, in the north of England. He was described as being "as famous in his day as Isambard Kingdom Brunel".[1]

Bell was an energetic and skilful entrepreneur as well as an innovative metallurgist. He was involved in multiple partnerships with his brothers to make iron and alkali chemicals, and with other pioneers including Robert Stirling Newall to make steel cables. He pioneered the large-scale manufacture of aluminium at his Washington works, conducting experiments in its production, and in the production of other chemicals such as the newly discovered element thallium. He was a director of major companies including the North Eastern Railway and the Forth Bridge company, then the largest bridge project in the world.

He was a wealthy patron of the arts, commissioning the architect Philip Webb, the designer William Morris and the painter Edward Burne-Jones on his Yorkshire mansions Rounton Grange and Mount Grace Priory.

Early life
Bell was the son of Thomas Bell, one of the founders of the iron and alkali company Losh, Wilson and Bell, and his wife Katherine Lowthian.[2] He was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and educated at Dr Bruce's academy in Percy Street, Newcastle, followed by studying physical science at Edinburgh University and the Sorbonne University, Paris.[3][4] He gained experience in manufacturing alkalis at Marseilles before returning to Newcastle in 1836 to work in his father's Walker iron and chemical works.[5][6] For 30 years from 1850, Bell was active on the town council of Newcastle upon Tyne. He became sheriff of the town in 1851, mayor in 1854 and alderman in 1859. Once again he was elected mayor for Newcastle in 1862.[4][24]

Bell was elected as the Member of Parliament for North Durham from February to June 1874, and for The Hartlepools from 1875 to 1880. He lost his seat in North Durham in 1874 on the grounds that his agents were guilty of intimidation.[4] On 20 July 1842 Bell, known as Lowthian, married Margaret Pattinson, daughter of his business partner Hugh Lee Pattinson and Phebe Walton. Margaret's younger sisters married Bell's business partners Robert Benson Bowman and Robert Stirling Newall: all three brothers-in-law were members of Tyneside Naturalists' Field Club and the Natural History Society of Northumberland.[36]

Their children were Sir Thomas Hugh Bell, 2nd Baronet, known as Hugh, who was father of the explorer and diplomat Gertrude Bell, Florence, Mary Katherine, known as Maisie, who in 1873 married Edward Stanley, 4th Baron Stanley of Alderley,[37] Ada, Charles, and Ellen (who died in infancy). He had about 60 grandchildren.[16]

In 1854, he built Washington New Hall, a few miles south of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In 1872 an illegally young chimney sweep, aged 7, died in a chimney in the Hall. Bell promptly moved into the newly built Rounton Grange near Northallerton, leaving Washington Hall empty for nineteen years until he donated it as a home for poor children, named at his request "Dame Margaret's Hall".[16] According to his granddaughter's biographer Georgina Howell, he was "a formidable giant of a man" and somewhat abrasive.[38] The family prepared a Christmas alphabet in 1877 at Rounton Grange, including "C is the Crushing Contemptuous Pater", which Bell's daughter Elsa later annotated "Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell".[38] In Howell's view, another event also hinted at Bell's character: one cold winter's night, his coachman was found, according to some papers found in Mount Grace Priory, "frozen stiff on the box-seat of his carriage". Howell notes that the coachman could simply have had a heart attack, and not have died of exposure at all, but still, in her view "consideration for others was not, perhaps, Lowthian's principal quality".[38]


The converted manor house at Mount Grace Priory, in 2008
Rounton Grange was finished in 1876, under the architect Philip Webb; it was at that time his largest project. The house was five storeys high, of yellow brick with a pantiled roof, enormous mock mediaeval chimneys and "gothic" features. It was set in an estate of 3000 acres with lawns, a wood full of daffodils, a rose garden, and two lakes. Inside was an immense arched gallery that stretched the full width of the house, a wide curved staircase and baronial fireplace. In the main drawing room there was an Adamesque fireplace, and two grand pianos on a vast carpet. There was a large tapestry frieze of Chaucer's Romaunt of the Rose designed by William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, and made by Lady Bell and her daughters over several years.[39]

Given his huge wealth, Margaret and he lived relatively simply,[4][38] preferring the relatively humble[16] Arts and Crafts style for his three-year refurbishment of the medieval Mount Grace Priory near Osmotherley, which was in serious disrepair when he purchased it in 1898[40] as a weekend retreat.[41] The house was decorated by the best designers of the day in the "Aesthetic" style, with William Morris's "Double Bough" wallpaper hand-printed using 22 apple wood printing blocks. For the restoration of 2010 the original blocks were used to produce a close replica of the original wallpaper, each roll taking a week to print by hand.[42] While decorating the great house, Morris spoke of "ministering to the swinish luxury of the rich".[43]

Bell died on 20 December 1904 at his house in London, 10 Belgrave Terrace.[44] He left £750,000 to his son Hugh Bell on his death in 1904.[45]

Legacy
After his death, the Institution of Mining Engineers resolved that[4]

It is impossible to estimate the value of the services that Sir Lowthian Bell rendered to the Institution of Mining Engineers in promoting its objects, and in devoting his time and energies to the advancement of the Institution.

— Council of the Institution of Mining Engineers[4]
Gertrude Bell's biographer, Georgina Howell, writes of Lowthian Bell that through his writings such as The Chemical Phenomena of Iron Smelting he was seen as the "high priest of British Metallurgy". She observes that he was noted also for his wealth and for the innovations he made, such as the use of steel-making slag as phosphate fertilizer,[a] and that he was arguably Britain's "foremost industrialist". Among his friends were famous Victorians such as Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley, William Morris and John Ruskin.[16] However, Howell writes, "Lowthian was admired rather than loved, and appears to have been dictatorial and harsh towards his family."[46] She observes that "There is to this day no biography of the man who was as famous in his day as Isambard Kingdom Brunel."[1]