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{{EngvarB|date=August 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2014}}
[[File:Major_Evans_Bell.jpg|thumb|Portrait]]

'''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'')<ref name="Royle1974">{{cite book|author=Edward Royle|title=Victorian Infidels: The Origins of the British Secularist Movement, 1791–1866|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XgkNAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA307|year=1974|publisher=Manchester University Press|isbn=978-0-7190-0557-2|page=307}}</ref> and Indicus (1865).<ref>{{cite book|author=Emil Weller|title=Lexicon Pseudonymorum|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-AF3cm2_RMQC&pg=PA277|date=1 January 1977|publisher=Georg Olms Verlag|isbn=978-3-487-40056-3|page=277}}</ref>

==Life==
The son of William Bell, he was educated in [[Wandsworth]], London. In 1841 he went to Madras in the [[East India Company]]'s service.<ref name="DIB">{{cite book|title=Dictionary of Indian Biography|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y8AKI2nqPBQC&pg=PA33|publisher=Ardent Media|pages=33–4|id=GGKEY:BDL52T227UN|year=1971}}</ref> He was a secularist and supporter of [[George Jacob Holyoake]], who gave Bell's name in 1856 on a short list of those who had done most for the [[free-thought]] movement, and he had a share in Holyoake's "British Secular Institute of Secularism and Propagandism".<ref name="Royle1974"/><ref>{{cite book |title=The History of the Fleet Street House: a report of sixteen years |date=1856 |publisher=Published by 'The Promoters of Free-thought' |jstor=60202777 }}{{pn|date=August 2022}}</ref><ref>[[Joseph McCabe]], ''Life and Letters of George Jacob Holyoake'' vol. 1 (1908), p. 215; [https://archive.org/stream/lifeandlettersg02mccagoog#page/n236/mode/2up archive.org.]</ref> In 1851 he spoke at the first Free Discussion Festival, at the City Road Hall of Science.<ref>{{cite book|author=Edward Royle|title=Victorian Infidels: The Origins of the British Secularist Movement, 1791–1866|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XgkNAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA174|year=1974|publisher=Manchester University Press|isbn=978-0-7190-0557-2|pages=174–5}}</ref> He was also one of [[John Chapman (publisher)|John Chapman]]'s authors.<ref>{{cite book|author=Elizabeth Crawford|title=The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866–1928|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a2EK9P7-ZMsC&pg=PA576|date=2 September 2003|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-135-43402-1|page=576}}</ref> Bell was strongly critical of the East India Company, and its impact on peasant proprietorship in India.<ref>{{cite book|title=Citoyenneté, empires & mondialisation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xNKHZoJkvekC&pg=PA99|year=2006|publisher=Presses Univ Blaise Pascal|isbn=978-2-84516-313-3|page=99}}</ref>

After the [[Indian Rebellion of 1857]], Bell lost his position in [[Nagpur]], for complaining over the head of his immediate superior about the treatment of the Ranis of the [[Nagpur kingdom]]. In Madras in the early 1860s, he was secretary of the Madras Literary Society, and edited its ''Madras Journal'' in 1861. When [[Whitley Stokes]] moved to India, he successfully identified an anonymous translator of [[Omar Khayyám]] as [[Edward FitzGerald (poet)|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]]'' to Bell.<ref name="PooleRuymbeke2013">{{cite book|author1=Adrian Poole|author2=Christine van Ruymbeke|author3=William H. Martin|author4=Sandra Mason|title=FitzGerald's Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: Popularity and Neglect|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ohgdAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA97|date=15 November 2013|publisher=Anthem Press|isbn=978-1-78308-071-7|pages=97–8}}</ref>

Bell retired on half pay in 1866.<ref name="Pank">[http://sylviapankhurst.gn.apc.org/SPML%202010%20v3.pdf ''2010 Sylvia Pankhurst Memorial Lecture, V. Irene Cockroft]</ref> He was a member of the London National Society for Women's Suffrage in 1866.<ref name="Crawford2013">{{cite book|author=Elizabeth Crawford|title=The Women's Suffrage Movement in Britain and Ireland: A Regional Survey|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uUrKCVn9VZkC&pg=PA201|date=15 April 2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-136-01054-5|page=201}}</ref> In 1871 and 1875 he was on the council of the East India Association, where he supported trust as a principle of imperial policy.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Birdwood |first1=George |title=On competition and the Indian Civil Service: a paper read before the East India Association, Tuesday, May 21, 1872 |date=1872 |page=2 |publisher=Printed by W.J. Johnson |jstor=60243628 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Long |first1=James |title=The position of Turkey in relation to British interests in India |date=1876 |page=32 |jstor=60235578 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Sabyasachi Bhattacharya|title=The Financial Foundations of the British Raj: Ideas and Interests in the Reconstruction of Indian Public Finance 1858–1872|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BABluVWfMp8C&pg=PA11|date=1 January 2005|publisher=Orient Blackswan|isbn=978-81-250-2903-8|page=11}}</ref> He was on the Greek Committee of 1879.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Committee. |first1=Greek |title=Report of the meeting at Willis' rooms, Saturday, May 17th, 1879, in support of the claims of Greece |date=1879 |page=4 |publisher=The Greek Committee |jstor=60226976 }}</ref>

==Works==
Evans's works included:

*''Task of To-day'' (1852)<ref name="Wheeler">{{cite book|author=Joseph Mazzini Wheeler|title=A Biographical Dictionary of Freethinkers of All Ages and Nations|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6uwCg4u2M3kC&pg=PT38|publisher=Library of Alexandria|isbn=978-1-4655-6286-9|page=38|year=1889}}</ref>
*''The English in India'' (1859)<ref name="DIB"/>
*''The Empire in India'' (1864)<ref name="DIB"/>
*''The Rajah and Principality of Mysore: With a Letter to the Right Hon. Lord Stanley, M.P.'' (1865)<ref>{{cite book|author=Evans Bell|title=The Rajah and Principality of Mysore: With a Letter to the Right Hon. Lord Stanley, M.P.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=01MOAAAAQAAJ|year=1865|publisher=T. Richards}}</ref>
*''The Mysore Reversion'' (1865)<ref name="DIB"/>
*''Remarks on the Mysore Blue Book'' (1866)<ref name="DIB"/>
*''Retrospects and Prospects of Indian Policy'' (1868)<ref>{{cite book|author=Evans Bell|title=Retrospects and Prospects of Indian Policy|url=https://archive.org/details/retrospectsandp00bellgoog|year=1868|publisher=Trübner}}</ref>
*''The Oxus and the Indus'' (1869)<ref name="DIB"/>
*''The Great Parliamentary Bore'' (1869).<ref name="DIB"/> On the treatment of the Nawabs of the Carnatic and family.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Westminster Review|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TFsVAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA536|year=1869|publisher=J. Chapman|page=536}}</ref>
*''Our Great Vassal Empire'' (1870)<ref name="DIB"/>
*''Is India a Conquered Country And, If So, what Then?'' (1870, pamphlet)<ref>{{cite book|author=Evans Bell|title=Is India a Conquered Country And, If So, what Then?|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gmZgHQAACAAJ|year=1870|publisher=W. C. Johnson}}</ref>
*''Public Works and the Public Service in India'' (1871), with Frederick Tyrrell<ref>{{cite book|author1=Thomas Evans Bell|author2=Frederick Tyrrell|title=Public Works and the Public Service in India|publisher=Trübner|url=https://archive.org/details/publicworksandp00tyrrgoog|year=1871}}</ref>
*''The Bengal Reversion'' (1872)<ref name="DIB"/>
*''Last Counsels of an Unknown Counsellor'' (1877, editor)<ref name="DIB"/>
*''The Annexation of the Punjaub and the Maharajah Duleep Singh'' (1882)<ref name="Bell1882">{{cite book|author=Evans Bell|title=The Annexation of the Punjaub and the Maharajah Dulcep Singh|url=https://archive.org/details/annexationpunja00bellgoog|year=1882|publisher=Trubner & Company}}</ref>
*''Memoirs'' of General [[John Briggs (East India Company officer)|John Briggs]] (1886)<ref name="DIB"/>

==Family==
Bell married Emily Magnus (c. 1839–1893), another freethinker who was an actor and classical musician. They had a daughter [[Ernestine Mills|Ernestine]] (1871–1959); an older daughter had died in an outbreak of [[typhoid]] at [[Barnes, London]], where they had moved to be close to [[Henry Davis Pochin]] and his wife Agnes. Ernestine was cared for by guardians [[William Alexander Ayton|William]] and [[Hertha Ayrton]] after her parents deaths<ref>{{Cite web|title=Humanist Heritage: Ernestine Mills (1871-1959)|url=https://heritage.humanists.uk/ernestine-mills/|access-date=2021-12-04|website=Humanist Heritage|language=en}}</ref> and grew up to be an artist, writer and [[suffragette]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Crawford|first=Elizabeth|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ygXwlK_mj50C&dq=Ernestine+Mills+hertha+ayrton&pg=PT84|title=The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928|date=2003-09-02|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-135-43401-4|language=en}}</ref> She married the doctor Herbert Mills (1868–1947) who shared her [[Fabian Society|Fabian]] views.<ref name="Pank"/>

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

{{Authority control}}

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

Evans Bell - Revision history

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