Britain
Gertrude Bell
1868–1926 Political officer and Oriental Secretary in Mesopotamia and Iraq, 1916–1926
Born into a wealthy family in County Durham, Gertrude Bell studied modern history at Oxford, then explored the Middle East as a traveler, writer and archaeologist, reaching Ha'il in Arabia in 1913–1914. After Red Cross work in Boulogne, she was summoned to the Arab Bureau in Cairo in November 1915. In 1916 she joined Percy Cox's staff in Basra, the only woman to hold formal rank in the force, and from 1917 served as his Oriental Secretary in Baghdad. At the 1921 Cairo Conference she supported making Faisal king of Iraq. From 1922 she was Honorary Director of Antiquities, helping to found the Iraq Museum. She died in Baghdad on 12 July 1926 of an overdose of sleeping pills; whether it was intentional is unknown.
In the chronicle
Sources
Sources
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Bell
- atom.aim25.com/index.php/bell-gertrude-1868-1926-2
- blogs.ncl.ac.uk/speccoll/2015/04/02/major-miss-bell-gertrude-bell-and-the-first-world-war
- www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/bell-gertrude-1868-1926
- www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/gertrude-bell
- www.ouriraq.org/article/gertrude-bell-and-chronicles-iraq-museum-1920-2015
- islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/bell-gertrude-lowthian