Thomas Evans Bell (11 November 1825 – 12 September 1887) was an English Indian army officer and writer. He used the pseudonyms Undecimus (in ''The Reasoner'') and Indicus (1865).

Life

The son of William Bell, he was educated in

Wandsworth Wandsworth Town () is a district of south London, within the London Borough of Wandsworth southwest of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan The London Plan is the statutory spatial development strategy for the Gre ...

, London. In 1841 he went to Madras in the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...

's service. He was a secularist and supporter of

George Jacob Holyoake George Jacob Holyoake (13 April 1817 – 22 January 1906) was an English secularist, co-operator and newspaper editor. He coined the terms secularism in 1851 and "jingoism" in 1878. He edited a secularist paper, the ''Reasoner'', from 1846 to J ...

, who gave Bell's name in 1856 on a short list of those who had done most for the

free-thought Freethought (sometimes spelled free thought) is an epistemological viewpoint which holds that beliefs should not be formed on the basis of authority, tradition, revelation, or dogma, and that beliefs should instead be reached by other method ...

movement, and he had a share in Holyoake's "British Secular Institute of Secularism and Propagandism". In 1851 he spoke at the first Free Discussion Festival, at the City Road Hall of Science. He was also one of John Chapman's authors. Bell was strongly critical of the East India Company, and its impact on peasant proprietorship in India. After the

Indian Rebellion of 1857 The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the fo ...

, Bell lost his position in

Nagpur Nagpur (pronunciation: Help:IPA/Marathi, aːɡpuːɾ is the third largest city and the winter capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the 13th largest city in India by population and according to an Oxford's Economics report, Nag ...

, for complaining over the head of his immediate superior about the treatment of the Ranis of the

Nagpur kingdom The Kingdom of Nagpur was an Indian kingdom in the 18th and 19th centuries. It came under the rule of the Marathas of the Bhonsle dynasty in the mid-18th century and became part of the Maratha Empire. The city of Nagpur was the capital of the st ...

. In Madras in the early 1860s, he was secretary of the Madras Literary Society, and edited its ''Madras Journal'' in 1861. When

Whitley Stokes Whitley Stokes, CSI, CIE, FBA (28 February 1830 – 13 April 1909) was an Irish lawyer and Celtic scholar. Background He was a son of William Stokes (1804–1878), and a grandson of Whitley Stokes the physician and anti-Malthusian (1763� ...

moved to India, he successfully identified an anonymous translator of

Omar Khayyám Ghiyāth al-Dīn Abū al-Fatḥ ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm Nīsābūrī (18 May 1048 – 4 December 1131), commonly known as Omar Khayyam ( fa, عمر خیّام), was a polymath, known for his contributions to mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, an ...

as Edward FitzGerald, much before this fact was generally known, and named him in the ''Journal''. In 1864 Stokes attributed the Madras (pirate) edition of the ''

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam ''Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám'' is the title that Edward FitzGerald gave to his 1859 translation from Persian to English of a selection of quatrains (') attributed to Omar Khayyam (1048–1131), dubbed "the Astronomer-Poet of Persia". Altho ...

'' to Bell. Bell retired on half pay in 1866.''2010 Sylvia Pankhurst Memorial Lecture, V. Irene Cockroft
/ref> He was a member of the London National Society for Women's Suffrage in 1866. In 1871 and 1875 he was on the council of the East India Association, where he supported trust as a principle of imperial policy. He was on the Greek Committee of 1879.

Works

Evans's works included: *''Task of To-day'' (1852) *''The English in India'' (1859) *''The Empire in India'' (1864) *''The Rajah and Principality of Mysore: With a Letter to the Right Hon. Lord Stanley, M.P.'' (1865) *''The Mysore Reversion'' (1865) *''Remarks on the Mysore Blue Book'' (1866) *''Retrospects and Prospects of Indian Policy'' (1868) *''The Oxus and the Indus'' (1869) *''The Great Parliamentary Bore'' (1869). On the treatment of the Nawabs of the Carnatic and family. *''Our Great Vassal Empire'' (1870) *''Is India a Conquered Country And, If So, what Then?'' (1870, pamphlet) *''Public Works and the Public Service in India'' (1871), with Frederick Tyrrell *''The Bengal Reversion'' (1872) *''Last Counsels of an Unknown Counsellor'' (1877, editor) *''The Annexation of the Punjaub and the Maharajah Duleep Singh'' (1882) *''Memoirs'' of General John Briggs (1886)

Family

Bell married Emily Magnus (c. 1839–1893), another freethinker who was an actor and classical musician. They had a daughter

Ernestine Ernestine is a feminine given name. Ernest is the male counterpart of this name. Notable people with the name include: * Ernestine Anderson (1928–2016), American jazz and blues singer * Ernestine Bayer (1909–2006), American athlete * Ernestine ...

(1871–1959); an older daughter had died in an outbreak of

typhoid Typhoid fever, also known as typhoid, is a disease caused by '' Salmonella'' serotype Typhi bacteria. Symptoms vary from mild to severe, and usually begin six to 30 days after exposure. Often there is a gradual onset of a high fever over several ...

Barnes, London Barnes () is a district in south London, part of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England. It takes up the extreme north-east of the borough, and as such is the closest part of the borough to central London. It is centred west sou ...

, where they had moved to be close to Henry Davis Pochin and his wife Agnes. Ernestine was cared for by guardians

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

and

Hertha Ayrton Phoebe Sarah Hertha Ayrton (28 April 1854 – 26 August 1923) was a British engineer, mathematician, physicist and inventor, and suffragette. Known in adult life as Hertha Ayrton, born Phoebe Sarah Marks, she was awarded the Hughes Medal by the ...

after her parents deaths and grew up to be an artist, writer and

suffragette A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...

. She married the doctor Herbert Mills (1868–1947) who shared her Fabian views.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bell, Evans 1825 births 1887 deaths British East India Company Army officers English male writers