Doyne Courtenay Bell (3 August 1830 ― 26 March 1888) was an English court servant, antiquary, and composer.
Early life Bell was born in Gower Street, Bloomsbury, the son of a wine merchant. After University College School and King's College, London, he went to live in the Duchy of Brunswick to learn German, which he mastered. On his return to England, a clergyman uncle, George Hamilton, recommended him to Sir William Reid, who took him on as an assistant in the preparations for the Great Exhibition of 1851. Work While the Exhibition was ongoing, Prince Albert, impressed by Bell's abilities, hired him to work in the royal household to help with Privy Purse correspondence.Sir George Scharf, "Mr. Doyne C. Bell" (obituary) in The Athenaeum, No. 3154, 7 April 1888, p. 436
Bell struck up a friendship with George Scharf, director of the National Portrait Gallery, a fellow Old Gower, and built up a good knowledge of historic portraits, not least those in the Royal Collection. Bell was also Secretary of the committee which after Prince Albert's death in 1861 planned the Albert Memorial in Hyde Park, finally completed in 1872.
Bell was a musical composer. Between 1868 and 1876, he published at least twenty settings for songs, works of the 17th century and of Wordsworth, Longfellow, Blake, and others."Bell, Doyne Courtenay", in Donald Fitch, Blake Set to Music: A Bibliography of Musical Settings of the Poems and Prose of William Blake (University of California Press, 1990), p. 17 Dating from 1876, his setting to music of Blake's "Can I see another's woe", from Songs of Innocence and of Experience, is the earliest such work inspired by Blake now known.Steve Clark, T. Connolly, Jason Whittaker, Blake 2.0: William Blake in Twentieth-Century Art, Music and Culture (Springer, 2012), p. 146
In 1876, Bell was promoted to Permanent Secretary to the Keeper of the Privy Purse and remained in post until his death. His annual salary in 1888 was £300.Whitaker's Almanack (1888), p. 90
In 1871, Bell studied the tombs of Richard II and Henry III at Westminster Abbey, and in 1877 was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. His greatest work in that field was a study of the burials in the Church of St Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London."Mr Doyne Courtenay Bell" (obituary) in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London, 1889, p. 140J. A. Crowe, G. B. Cavalcaselle, Raphael, his Life and Works, Vol. 1 (London:John Murray, 1882), p. 16 By 1879, he had been elected as a member of the Council of the Society.Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London 1879, p. 116
Personal life At the census of 1861, Bell was living at 50, Gower Street, with his parents, Robert and Laura Bell, an unmarried sister, and two female servants.1861 United Kingdom census, "Gower Street, Finsbury"; "Doyce Courtenay Bell in the 1871 England Census"; "Doyne C. Bell", 1881 United Kingdom census, "Royal Mews", ancestry.co.uk, accessed 1 November 2023
On 19 November 1862, at the church of St Mary-at-Lambeth, Bell married Amelia Sampson, the daughter of Thomas Sampson, a tailor. He gave his occupation as "Government Clerk" and signed his name as Doyne C. Bell."1862, No. 220", in Marriages Solemnized in the Parish Church of St. Mary Lambeth in the County of Surrey, p. 110 By 1871, he was a widower. In 1881 he was living in an apartment in the Royal Mews, with a cook and a housemaid.
Bell died at the Royal Mews, Buckingham Palace, where he was still living, in March 1888, leaving a substantial fortune valued at £11,566 (). His unmarried sisters Louisa Georgiana and Ethel Hamilton Bell and another relation, Robert Courtenay Bell, were his executors."BELL Doyne Courtenay Esq." in Wills and Administrations England and Wales 1888 (1889), p. 456 It was reported that he had died of pneumonia, and his friend Scharf wrote an obituary for The Athenaeum.
Doyne's executors gave his portrait of Henry Grattan by Francis Wheatley to the National Portrait Gallery,The Antiquary, Vols. 17 & 18 (1888), p. 259 and towards the end of 1888 Bell was recorded as a donor to the Gallery."Donors of Portraits to the National Portrait Gallery in the Order of their Donations", in George Scharf, ed., Historical and Descriptive Catalogue of the Pictures, Busts, &c. in the National Portrait Gallery (H. M. Stationery Office, 1888), p. 14
Publications The National Memorial to His Royal Highness the Prince Consort, with descriptive letter-press by D. C. Bell (London: John Murray, 1873) Notices of the Historic Persons buried in the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London: with an Account of the Discovery of the Supposed Remains of Queen Anne Boleyn (London: John Murray, 1877; reprinted by Creative Media Partners, LLC, October 2022, , 398 pages)
Notes
External links Notices of the historic persons buried in the chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula, in the Tower of London (1877, full text at HathiTrust)