Dr. James Bell, C.B., F.R.S.

Abstract

WE regret to have to announce the death, on March 31, in his eighty-fourth year, of Dr. James Bell, formerly principal of the Somerset House laboratory. Dr. Bell was a native of County Armagh, and entering the Inland Revenue Service became, when a comparatively young man, an assistant in the chemical department of Somerset House, then under the charge of Mr. George Phillips. This department, the forerunner of the present Government Laboratory, was the outcome of the Tobacco Act of 1842, and was created with the object of supplementing the provisions of that Act in suppressing the adulteration of tobacco. For his chemical education Dr. Bell was mainly indebted to the late Prof. Williamson. Indeed, in the early days of the Somerset House laboratory a close association existed between it and University College, and a number of the first assistants were trained in theoretical and practical chemistry in the Gower Street laboratories, and some of them, like Duffy, Kay and Railton, were encouraged by Dr. Williamson, then in the full vigour of his scientific activity, to try their prentice hands at original investigation. In the first years of its existence the laboratory, the staff of which consisted solely of Mr. Phillips himself, was almost exclusively engaged on the objects for which it was founded, but as its utility became more and more apparent its operations were gradually extended, and eventually embraced the examination of practically very excisable article. The laboratory at this period was also largely concerned with inquiries as to the brewing values of various materials, and on the methods of determining original gravities, and on the denaturing of spirits of wine so as to permit its use for manufacturing purposes without danger to the revenue-all of which work found its application in subsequent Acts of Parliament.