Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, 1st Baronet, FRS (18 February 1816 – 20 December 1904) was a British ironmaster and Liberal Party politician from Washington, County Durham. He was described as being "as famous in his day as Isambard Kingdom Brunel".
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.Charles Mosley, editor, Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes (Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A.: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003), volume 1, page 331. 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. He gained experience in manufacturing alkalis at Marseille before returning to Newcastle in 1836 to work in his father's Walker iron and chemical works.Grace's Guides: Isaac Lowthian Bell. Retrieved 28 November 2012.North Yorkshire County Council Archives: Bell of Rounton Grange Records
Industry
Bell's industrial life was complex: involvement in up to three different partnerships at the same time created a conflict of loyalties, causing allegiances to each to vary over the years. Inspired to become an entrepreneur he took over the Walker ironworks on his father's death in 1845. In 1850 at Washington, County Durham, Bell made a breakthrough discovering a new process for manufacturing lead oxychloride. His partners and co-founders of the Washington chemical company, named after his home, were his brother-in-law Robert Benson Bowman and his father-in-law Hugh Lee Pattinson. Pattinson was the inventor responsible for the process separating silver from lead that bears his name. Under an 1850 Indenture,Indenture 1759/13 Charles Vane, 3rd Marquess of Londonderry, Pattinson and Bell declared themselves "chemical manufacturers and co-partners in trade". Bell decided the partnership might be incompatible with his continued involvement in the running of Losh, Wilson and Bell. In September 1849 he wrote to Losh and Wilson informing them that the partnership with Pattinson "would necessitate my relinquishing the office I at present hold in your firm".
Establishing a partnership with Robert Stirling Newall in 1850, Bell set up the first factory in the world with machines able to manufacture steel rope and submarine cable. Two years later his brothers Thomas Bell and John Bell joined him to build a major iron works at Port Clarence, Middlesbrough on the north bank of the River Tees. By 1853 there were three blast furnaces, each with a capacity of just over , making them the largest in Britain at the time. The works produced iron for bridges and steel rails for railways across the British Empire including the North Eastern Railway company, of which Bell was a director from 1864 onwards, and deputy chairman from 1895 until his death. The Bell brothers' company operated its own ironstone mines at Normanby and Cleveland, and its own limestone quarries in Weardale, employing about 6000 men in mining and manufacturing. By 1878 the firm was producing 200,000 tons of iron per annum. Bell was a professional metallurgist and industrial chemist, constantly pioneering processes such as the recycling of heat from escaping flue gases, and trialling many process improvements.
In 1859 Bell opened Britain's first factory able to manufacture aluminium, a metal which had been as costly as gold because of the difficulty of chemically reducing the metal from an oxide. On the day it opened at Washington, Bell toured Newcastle in his carriage, saluting the crowds with an aluminium top hat. The plant used the new Deville sodium process.Durham Mining Museum: The Times Obituary: Sir Lowthian Bell. 21 December 1904. Retrieved 28 November 2012. he described how critical it was to make aluminium pure in The Technologist:
In 1863, Bell exhibited "several pounds" of the recently discovered element thallium when the British Association met in Newcastle that autumn. The metal was obtained from the flue deposits (mainly lead sulphate) from the manufacture of sulphuric acid from pyrites, one of the products of the Washington works. All the credit was given to researcher Henri Brivet, who was "chief" of the laboratories at Washington, having experienced "languor and headache" then known to be caused by breathing thallium fumes.
The Cleveland ironstone had been considered inferior for steelmaking, as it contained a relatively high percentage of phosphorus at 1.8 to 2.0%, weakening the resulting iron. Bell directed large-scale experiments at a cost of up to £50,000,Equivalent to £3 million in 2004, adjusted for RPI. resulting in a basic steel process which produced steel rails containing no more than 0.07% phosphorus. His obituary in The Times of 1904 noted, as a sign of the progress that Bell himself had brought about, that Bell could recall "seeing wooden rails in use on the tramroads by which coal was brought down to the River Tees".
In 1867 and 1868, Bell gave papers on the state of the manufacture of iron and that of foreign competitors, in particular France, Belgium and Germany. Britain's great strength lay in its "incomparable fields of coal which constitute so important a feature in our mineral wealth". He stated that although the price and quality of coal were better in Britain, the cost of labour could be as much as 20–25% lower, particularly in Germany.Bell, Isaac Lowthian:The present state of the manufacture of iron in Great Britain, and its position as compared with that of some other countries (from the report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science 1867), M & M.W. Lambert, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1867 (retrieved from Tracts vol.2 in the collection of North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers) 5 March 2014 In 1882, Bell successfully drilled for salt at Port Clarence, finding an exploitable salt bed at a depth of . He used the salt for making soda, but the borehole was sold to the Salt Union in 1888.
In 1875, Bell began to move out of working in industry by retiring from his partnership with Robert Benson Bowman and Robert Stirling Newall, leaving the two of them to continue to run the chemical works until 1878, when Newall bought out Bowman. Archaeo-Environment: Washington Chemical Works . Retrieved 23 October 2019 He continued to own shares in Bell companies and the North Eastern Railway. In 1901, at age 85, after a long period of difficulty for heavy industry and with fears of worse to come as manufacturing grew in Germany, America and Japan, he made a decisive move to guard the family's wealth. He sold his railway interests to the North Eastern Railway company, and the sale of a majority holding in his manufacturing companies to rival Dorman Long was completed in 1903. From the fortune thus released, he gave £5,000 to each of his many nephews, nieces and grandchildren.
Politics 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.Newcastle.gov: Mayors and Sheriffs 1800–1904. Retrieved 28 November 2012.
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.
Honours, awards and achievements
Bell founded the Iron and Steel Institute and was its president from 1873 to 1875. In 1874 he became the first recipient of the gold medal instituted by Sir Henry Bessemer. Bell became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1874 for his distinction in chemistry and metallurgy, especially of iron.
An international figure with a scientific profile, he was invited to serve as a juror at International Exhibitions in Philadelphia in 1876, and again in Paris in 1878. He was accordingly made an honorary member of the American Philosophical Institution and an officer of the Legion d'Honneur. In 1877 he founded the Institute of Chemistry of Great Britain (later the Royal Institute of Chemistry). being nominated a fellow of the Chemical Society of London, and president of the Society of Chemical Industry from 1889-90."NEIMME: Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, Bart"
During the 1881 Census, taken on 3 April, Bell was recorded as a visitor at his daughter Maisie's house. Her husband the Hon. Edward L. Stanley, M.P. in Harley Street, London was the Head of the Household, recording Bell's occupation as "Magistrate, Deputy Lieutenant, Iron Master". In 1882 he became a director of the Forth Bridge company. At that time this was the world's largest bridge project. Bell became president of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1884 and was made a baronet in 1885. With an inherited title he adopted the motto Perseverantia (perseverance) and the arms "Argent on a Fess between three Hawk's Lures Azure as many Hawk's Bells of the first".Cracroft's Peerage: Bell of Rounton Grange, Co. York, and of Washington Hall, co. Durham . Retrieved 28 November 2012.
In 1886 Bell became the 10th president of the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers. He was awarded the George Stephenson Medal from the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1890, and the Telford Medal (then called the Telford Premium) from the same institution, both for papers that he presented there.Institution of Civil Engineers Obituary, 1905. In 1895 Bell was awarded the Albert Medal of the Royal Society of Arts, in recognition of the services he has rendered to Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, by his metallurgical researches and the resulting development of the iron and steel industries.Institution of Mechanical Engineers: President, Sir Lowthian Bell
Works Bell wrote many papers on chemistry and metallurgy. In his Iron Trade, he correctly predicted the outstripping of Britain by Germany in industrial production, unsuccessfully urging government action to avoid this. His major works include: The Manufacture of Iron in connection with the Northumberland and Durham Coalfields, The Industrial resources of the District the three northern rivers, the Tyne, Wear and Tees: including the reports on the local manufactures, read before the British Association.Baron William George Armstrong, (1863), pp. 73–119 On the Manufacture of Aluminium, The Industrial resources of the District the three northern rivers, the Tyne, Wear and Tees: including the reports on the local manufactures, read before the British Association. (pp 73–119) Baron William George Armstrong, 1863. The Manufacture of Aluminium, The Technologist, July 1864. The Manufacture of Thallium, British Association, 1864. The present state of the manufacture of iron in Great Britain, and its position as compared with that of some other countries (from the report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science 1867), M & M.W. Lambert, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1867.