Professor David Charles Bell (4 May 1817 – 28 October 1902),
was a Scottish-born scholar, author and professor of elocution. He was an elder brother to
Alexander Melville Bell
Alexander Melville Bell (1 March 18197 August 1905) was a teacher and researcher of physiological phonetics and was the author of numerous works on orthoepy and elocution.
Additionally he was also the creator of Visible Speech which was use ...
and uncle to
Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell (, born Alexander Bell; March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-born inventor, scientist and engineer who is credited with patenting the first practical telephone. He also co-founded the American Telephone and Te ...
.
Professor of Elocution
Bell was born in
St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland. He married Ellen Adine Highland and together they had eleven children. He later followed his brother Melville to Canada, emigrating from Ireland to
Brantford, Ontario
Brantford ( 2021 population: 104,688) is a city in Ontario, Canada, founded on the Grand River in Southwestern Ontario. It is surrounded by Brant County, but is politically separate with a municipal government of its own that is fully independ ...
along with his wife and several of his children,
including Aileen, Lilly, Laura and Charles James. His family's vocations and activities were highly similar to Melville's, its member's being gifted in music and elocution. As did his younger brother, David became a professor of elocution, providing lectures on proper speech.
David Charles, Professor of English Literature and Elocution, had previously taught at Ireland's
Dublin University
The University of Dublin ( ga, Ollscoil Átha Cliath), corporately designated the Chancellor, Doctors and Masters of the University of Dublin, is a university located in Dublin, Ireland. It is the degree-awarding body for Trinity College Dubl ...
,
where one of his students was playwright
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...
, whom he later introduced to Melville. Shaw, under Melville's influence was inspired to write the play ''
Pygmalion
Pygmalion or Pigmalion may refer to:
Mythology
* Pygmalion (mythology), a sculptor who fell in love with his statue
Stage
* ''Pigmalion'' (opera), a 1745 opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau
* ''Pygmalion'' (Rousseau), a 1762 melodrama by Jean-Jacques ...
'' (which spawned the musical production and movie ''
My Fair Lady
''My Fair Lady'' is a musical based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play ''Pygmalion'', with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story concerns Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons f ...
'' and refers directly to "
Bell's Visible Speech"), and also became a life-long advocate of
phonetic transcription
Phonetic transcription (also known as phonetic script or phonetic notation) is the visual representation of speech sounds (or ''phones'') by means of symbols. The most common type of phonetic transcription uses a phonetic alphabet, such as the ...
—leaving a large part of his estate to the development of a "fonetic alfabet".
Shaw remembered David Charles as a "majestic and imposing looking man".
While residing at Brantford, Ontario, Bell was an assistant to an important early test of the telephone, newly invented by his nephew Alexander Graham. Bell spoke to his nephew from the Brantford telegraph office, reciting lines from
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
's ''
Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...
'' ("''To be or not to be....''").
The young inventor, positioned at the A. Wallis Ellis store in the neighbouring community of
Mount Pleasant,
listened to his uncle's voice emanating from his receiver housed in a metal box. Initially David Bell's voice couldn't be heard distinctly as "...all kinds and sizes of wire were used in stringing from the house to Mount Pleasant road." However, the Dominion Telegraph manager, Walter Griffin, decided to attach the wire to a telegraph battery to see if it would improve the transmission, which it did, and then "the voices then came in distinctly."
David's son
Charles James Bell (Dublin, 12 April 1858 – 1 October 1929) would marry Roberta Wolcott Hubbard (4 June 1859 – 4 July 1885), and then Grace Blatchford Hubbard (9 October 1861 – 16 July 1948), sisters of
Mabel Hubbard (Alexander Graham Bell's wife),
and become President of the
American Security and Trust Company
The American Security and Trust Company Building is a Neoclassical bank office in Washington, D.C., designed by the architectural firm of York and Sawyer. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
Design
The neoclassical ...
in the Washington, D.C. area.
David Charles wrote several works on elocution and speech, and in 1878 also co-authored ''Bell's Standard Elocutionist: Principles and Exercises'' along with his brother Melville. He died in Washington, D.C., age 86, and was survived by three sons and four daughters.
Dublin arrest and confusion with the Irish Republican David Bell
In a biography of his nephew Alexander Graham Bell,
Robert V. Bruce reports that in 1865 David Charles Bell was arrested in Dublin, but in explaining the circumstances appears to confuse David Charles with the Irish
Fenian
The word ''Fenian'' () served as an umbrella term for the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and their affiliate in the United States, the Fenian Brotherhood, secret political organisations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries dedicated ...
, Dr.
David Bell (no relation).
In October 1864, Fenian "headquarters" in New York notified members of a lecture tour by David Bell from Ireland, anticipating that it would "have the most stirring and beneficial effect." Bruce suggests that "Whatever the effect of the tour (if it ever came off), one effect of the circular was to lodge David
harles
Gottlieb Christoph Harless (originally Harles) (21 June 1738 – 2 November 1815) was a German classical scholar and bibliographer.
Biography
He was born at Culmbach in Bavaria. He studied at the universities of Halle, Erlangen and Jena. In ...
Bell, in the Dublin House of Correction a year later, where he spent some time picking oakam." He quotes from a "letter from prison" to his brother Melville in which David Charles expresses ardent Irish nationalist sympathies: "I must bear it, still, however, looking forward to the proud watchwords--Ireland! Independence! No Saxon government, no base bloody whiggery... will depress my soul."
Sources, including the recollections of
Thomas Clarke Luby
Thomas Clarke Luby (16 January 1822 – 29 November 1901) was an Irish revolutionary, author, journalist and one of the founding members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.
Early life
Luby was born in Dublin, the son of a Church of Ireland cler ...
of the
Irish Republican Brotherhood
The Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB; ) was a secret oath-bound fraternal organisation dedicated to the establishment of an "independent democratic republic" in Ireland between 1858 and 1924.McGee, p. 15. Its counterpart in the United States ...
(IRB) and letters written to Luby from America, confirm that the lecture tour did take place, and that the lecturer was Dr David Bell, a former Presbyterian minister and Tenant Right League activist who had been inducted into the IRB by
Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa
Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa ( ga, Diarmaid Ó Donnabháin Rosa; baptised 4 September 1831, died 29 June 1915)Con O'Callaghan Reenascreena Community Online (dead link archived at archive.org, 29 September 2014) was an Irish Fenian leader and member ...
in the spring 1864.
If David Charles Bell had association with the IRB, it is possible that he was caught in the general round up of "Fenians" in the summer of 1865. Dr David Bell, at that time, evaded arrest escaping first to France and then back to the United States where he died in 1890.
See also
*
Bell Homestead National Historic Site
The Bell Homestead National Historic Site, located in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, also known by the name of its principal structure, Melville House, was the first North American home of Professor Alexander Melville Bell and his family, includin ...
, Branford, Ontario, Canada
*
Volta Laboratory and Bureau
The Volta Laboratory (also known as the Alexander Graham Bell Laboratory, the Bell Carriage House and the Bell Laboratory) and the Volta Bureau were created in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. by Alexander Graham Bell.(19/20th-century scientist and ...
, Washington, D.C.
References
Notes
Citations
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bell, David Charles
1817 births
1902 deaths
Scottish expatriates in the United States
Scottish philologists
Academics of Dublin City University