Frank Erskine Bell OBE (18 September 1916 – 14 July 1989) was a British educator. Whilst a

prisoner of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of wa ...

(POW) in

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during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

he organised a "secret university" to provide educational opportunities for his fellow prisoners. He founded the first Bell Language School in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

, England in 1955 and later established the

Bell Educational Trust The Bell Educational Trust is an educational institution, that grew from the original EFL school, Bell International College, Cambridge, founded by Frank Bell in 1955. The Bell Educational Trust subsequently expanded outside Cambridge, with a nu ...

, a charity involved in language education.

Early life

Bell was educated at

Haileybury and Imperial Service College Haileybury is a public school (English independent day and boarding school) near Hertford in England. It is a member of the Rugby Group and, though originally a major boys' public school in the Victorian era, it is now co-educational, enro ...

and then at

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, from where he graduated in 1938 with a

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in French and Spanish. He joined the

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in 1940, was commissioned into the

Royal Artillery The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises t ...

in 1941, and was posted to the 48th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment which left England on 3 December 1941, destined for

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. It never arrived. On 7 December the

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

attacked Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, j ...

, and the British force, of which the Regiment was a part, was diverted to the Far East (see

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). It arrived in

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on 4 February 1942. Singapore fell to the Japanese 11 days later, and the Japanese landed on Java at about the same time. When the Dutch forces capitulated to them on 8 March the few British troops on the island, whose role was mainly airfield defence, became POWs. Bell was interned in five different camps before arriving at

Batu Lintang camp Batu Lintang camp (also known as Lintang Barracks and Kuching POW camp) at Kuching, Sarawak on the island of Borneo was a Japanese internment camp during the Second World War. It was unusual in that it housed both Allied prisoners of war (POWs) ...

Kuching Kuching (), officially the City of Kuching, is the capital and the most populous city in the States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Sarawak in Malaysia. It is also the capital of Kuching Division. The city is on the Sarawak River ...

in Sarawak on the island of Borneo in September 1943.The other camps were, in order of his incarceration: Koan School, Batavia; Glodok Gaol, Batavia; Changi Barracks, Singapore; Jesselton Gaol, North Borneo and Sandakan camp, North Borneo (Bell 11–25) At first the British officers and other ranks were all in the same sub-camp, but after a while the officers were separated out. As he was a 2nd Lieutenant, Bell was housed in the officers' compound. Bell was known by the nicknames "Tink" and "Tinker" (a reference to the character Tinkerbell in ''

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'').

The "Kuching University"

Bell was largely responsible for conceiving and organising what became known by the prisoners as the "Kuching University" in the British officers' camp. Under Japanese regulations, prisoners were forbidden to teach, to learn, to compile or possess notes on any subject whatever, or to meet in groups for discussion. The penalty for disobedience was imprisonment or death. Despite this, the university, led by Bell, established classes in seven modern languages (

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, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish and

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

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and poultry keeping. Bell and his fellow educators compiled text books, led classes and awarded diplomas. Classes were often held in the evenings when dusk or darkness gave some protection against surprise by their captors. Paper for writing exercises and for compiling textbooks was always at a premium: books were fashioned out of paper from soap wrappers, newspaper, the backs of letters and envelopes, and cigarette paper. These were bound into books and often covered with

sarong A sarong or sarung () is a large tube or length of fabric, often wrapped around the waist, worn in Southeast Asia, South Asia, Western Asia, Northern Africa, East Africa, West Africa, and on many Pacific islands. The fabric often has woven plaid o ...

material. This experience was formative in strengthening Bell's interest in language and adult education. In 1946, Bell wrote an account of his time in the camp which was published some 44 years later. It included a passage, written in

Cambridge University Library Cambridge University Library is the main research library of the University of Cambridge. It is the largest of the over 100 libraries within the university. The Library is a major scholarly resource for the members of the University of Cambri ...

reading room in 1946, which could be said to sum up Bell's vision:

Post-war career

After the war, as Assistant Secretary of the University of Cambridge Board of Extra-Mural Studies, Bell was actively engaged in the organisation of extension classes and lectures, courses for German ex-POWs, and University vacation courses for students from overseas. In 1948, he became Secretary of the university's committee for re-establishing links with German universities. In 1955, Bell founded in Cambridge the first Bell School of Languages for the teaching of English to foreign students. Further Bell Schools were opened in Norwich (1967 and 1975), Bath (1968) and Saffron Walden (1977). In 1968, he acquired Concord College, where overseas students were prepared for university. In 1972, he converted both these enterprises into Educational Trusts. As of 2012, The Bell Educational Trust (an educational charity) now comprises a business called Bell Educational Services Ltd. and a charitable wing operating under the name the Bell Foundation. Bell was Chairman of the Educational Interchange Council from 1951 to 1979 and was awarded the OBE in 1975. In 1986, he was elected Honorary President of ARELS-FELCO (the association of recognised English Language teaching establishments in Britain). He was Chairman of the Bell Educational Trust from 1988. Bell had a twin brother, Douglas. Frank Bell was married to Elisabeth (daughter of Sir Henry Willink) and they had a son, Nick and a daughter, Tass. He lived in Cambridge for most of his life. With his wife, Elisabeth, he re-visited Kuching in 1984, and was delighted to find the Batu Lintang Teachers' College flourishing on the site of the former POW camp in which he had established the "Kuching University". After his death in 1989, Elisabeth brought Bell's 1946 account and diary entries from his time at Batu Lintang to publication.

Notes

Sources

*Bell, Frank (1991) ''Undercover University'' (revised edition) Cambridge: Elisabeth Bell. (Originally published in 1990, same ISBN) *Mackie, Jack (2007) ''Captain Jack, Surveyor and Engineer: The autobiography of John Mackie'' Wellington: New Zealand Institute of Surveyors. *Ooi, Keat Gin (1998) ''Japanese Empire in the Tropics: Selected Documents and Reports of the Japanese Period in Sarawak, Northwest Borneo, 1941–1945'' Ohio University Center for International Studies, Monographs in International Studies, SE Asia Series 101 (2 vols)

External links