Francis Jeffrey Bell (

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

, 26 January 1855 -

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, 1 April 1924) was an English

zoologist Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the Animal, animal kingdom, including the anatomy, structure, embryology, evolution, Biological clas ...

who specialised in

echinoderms An echinoderm () is any member of the phylum Echinodermata (). The adults are recognisable by their (usually five-point) radial symmetry, and include starfish, brittle stars, sea urchins, sand dollars, and sea cucumbers, as well as the sea li ...

. He spent most of his life at the

British Museum (Natural History) The Natural History Museum in London is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum an ...

, and was also a professor of

comparative anatomy Comparative anatomy is the study of similarities and differences in the anatomy of different species. It is closely related to evolutionary biology and phylogeny (the evolution of species). The science began in the classical era, continuing in t ...

at King's College. His author abbreviation is Bell.

Life

Bell was born in Calcutta on 26 January 1855,Murray, J. (1922): 16 the son of Francis Jeffrey Bell. He went to school at Christ's Hospital in London. In January 1874 he enrolled as a student at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he studied zoology and pursued comparative anatomy under George Rolleston. He graduated cum laude in 1878 with a BA in natural science. In that year he also received an appointment as assistant in the zoological department of the British Museum (Natural History), under Albert Günther. He retained that post until his retirement in 1919. In 1878, his translation of Gegenbaur's "Grundzüge der vergleichenden Anatomie" (1859) appeared as "Elements of Comparative Anatomy," (1878)
Elements of Comparative Anatomy
/ref> which has long been used as a reference work. He obtained his MA in Oxford in 1881. (1988): 196 In 1885 he himself published the "Manual of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology", which became a widely used work among medical students. From 1879 to 1897King's Collections he was a professor of comparative anatomy at King's College. In 1897 he became professor emeritus and fellow of that college. In addition to being the author of a number of works on anatomy, Bell is best known for his many publications on echinoderms. In 1892 he published the standard work "Catalog of the British Echinoderms in the British Museum". Francis Jeffrey Bell died on 1 April 1924 as a result of an accident.

Publications

References

Nature 113: 541 (12 April 1924) * (1922)
The Magdalen College Record, third issue: 16
* King's Collections
Bell, Francis Jeffrey
* (1988). Francis Jeffrey Bell in
Founders of British physiology: 196
* (2014
Biographical Database of Southern African Science
*(translated from the Netherlands wikipedia article: Francis Jeffrey Bell - which appears to be almost a direct translation of Murray) ---- {{DEFAULTSORT:Bell, Francis Jeffrey British zoologists British marine biologists British physiologists