# Evans Bell

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**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*)[1] and Indicus (1865).[2]

## Life

The son of William Bell, he was educated in [Wandsworth](/source/Wandsworth), London. In 1841 he went to Madras in the [East India Company](/source/East_India_Company)'s service.[3] He was a secularist and supporter of [George Jacob Holyoake](/source/George_Jacob_Holyoake), who gave Bell's name in 1856 on a short list of those who had done most for the [free-thought](/source/Free-thought) movement, and he had a share in Holyoake's "British Secular Institute of Secularism and Propagandism".[1][4][5] In 1851 he spoke at the first Free Discussion Festival, at the City Road Hall of Science.[6] He was also one of [John Chapman](/source/John_Chapman_(publisher))'s authors.[7] Bell was strongly critical of the East India Company, and its impact on peasant proprietorship in India.[8]

After the [Indian Rebellion of 1857](/source/Indian_Rebellion_of_1857), Bell lost his position in [Nagpur](/source/Nagpur), for complaining over the head of his immediate superior about the treatment of the Ranis of the [Nagpur kingdom](/source/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](/source/Whitley_Stokes_(Celtic_scholar)) moved to India, he successfully identified an anonymous translator of [Omar Khayyám](/source/Omar_Khayy%C3%A1m) as [Edward FitzGerald](/source/Edward_FitzGerald_(poet)), 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](/source/Rubaiyat_of_Omar_Khayyam)* to Bell.[9]

Bell retired on half pay in 1866.[10] He was a member of the London National Society for Women's Suffrage in 1866.[11] In 1871 and 1875 he was on the council of the East India Association, where he supported trust as a principle of imperial policy.[12][13][14] He was on the Greek Committee of 1879.[15]

## Works

Evans's works included:

- *Task of To-day* (1852)[16]
- *The English in India* (1859)[3]
- *The Empire in India* (1864)[3]
- *The Rajah and Principality of Mysore: With a Letter to the Right Hon. Lord Stanley, M.P.* (1865)[17]
- *The Mysore Reversion* (1865)[3]
- *Remarks on the Mysore Blue Book* (1866)[3]
- *Retrospects and Prospects of Indian Policy* (1868)[18]
- *The Oxus and the Indus* (1869)[3]
- *The Great Parliamentary Bore* (1869).[3] On the treatment of the Nawabs of the Carnatic and family.[19]
- *Our Great Vassal Empire* (1870)[3]
- *Is India a Conquered Country And, If So, what Then?* (1870, pamphlet)[20]
- *Public Works and the Public Service in India* (1871), with Frederick Tyrrell[21]
- *The Bengal Reversion* (1872)[3]
- *Last Counsels of an Unknown Counsellor* (1877, editor)[3]
- *The Annexation of the Punjaub and the Maharajah Duleep Singh* (1882)[22]
- *Memoirs* of General [John Briggs](/source/John_Briggs_(East_India_Company_officer)) (1886)[3]

## Family

Bell married Emily Magnus (c. 1839–1893), another freethinker who was an actor and classical musician. They had a daughter [Ernestine](/source/Ernestine_Mills) (1871–1959); an older daughter had died in an outbreak of [typhoid](/source/Typhoid) at [Barnes, London](/source/Barnes,_London), where they had moved to be close to [Henry Davis Pochin](/source/Henry_Davis_Pochin) and his wife Agnes. Ernestine was cared for by guardians [William](/source/William_Alexander_Ayton) and [Hertha Ayrton](/source/Hertha_Ayrton) after her parents deaths[23] and grew up to be an artist, writer and [suffragette](/source/Suffragette).[24] She married the doctor Herbert Mills (1868–1947) who shared her [Fabian](/source/Fabian_Society) views.[10]

## Notes

1. Edward Royle (1974). [*Victorian Infidels: The Origins of the British Secularist Movement, 1791–1866*](https://books.google.com/books?id=XgkNAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA307). Manchester University Press. p. 307. ISBN 978-0-7190-0557-2.

1. [*Lexicon pseudonymorum: Wörterbuch der Pseudonymen aller Zeiten und Völker; oder, Verzeichniss jener Autoren, die sich falscher Namen bedienten*](https://archive.org/details/lexiconpseudonym00welluoft/page/277) (in German). 2nd ed. Regensburg: Alfred Coppenrath. 1886. p. 277.

1. [*Dictionary of Indian Biography*](https://books.google.com/books?id=Y8AKI2nqPBQC&pg=PA33). Ardent Media. 1971. pp. 33–4. GGKEY:BDL52T227UN.

1. *The History of the Fleet Street House: a report of sixteen years*. Published by 'The Promoters of Free-thought'. 1856. [JSTOR 60202777](https://www.jstor.org/stable/60202777)[page needed]

1. [Joseph McCabe](/source/Joseph_McCabe), *Life and Letters of George Jacob Holyoake* vol. 1 (1908), p. 215; [archive.org.](https://archive.org/stream/lifeandlettersg02mccagoog#page/n236/mode/2up)

1. Edward Royle (1974). [*Victorian Infidels: The Origins of the British Secularist Movement, 1791–1866*](https://books.google.com/books?id=XgkNAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA174). Manchester University Press. pp. 174–5. ISBN 978-0-7190-0557-2.

1. Elizabeth Crawford (2 September 2003). [*The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866–1928*](https://books.google.com/books?id=a2EK9P7-ZMsC&pg=PA576). Routledge. p. 576. ISBN 978-1-135-43402-1.

1. [*Citoyenneté, empires & mondialisation*](https://books.google.com/books?id=xNKHZoJkvekC&pg=PA99). Presses Univ Blaise Pascal. 2006. p. 99. ISBN 978-2-84516-313-3.

1. Adrian Poole; Christine van Ruymbeke; William H. Martin; Sandra Mason (15 November 2013). [*FitzGerald's Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: Popularity and Neglect*](https://books.google.com/books?id=ohgdAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA97). Anthem Press. pp. 97–8. ISBN 978-1-78308-071-7.

1. ["2010 Sylvia Pankhurst Memorial Lecture, V. Irene Cockroft"](https://web.archive.org/web/20120530142558/http://sylviapankhurst.gn.apc.org/SPML%202010%20v3.pdf). Archived from [the original](http://sylviapankhurst.gn.apc.org/SPML%202010%20v3.pdf) on 30 May 2012. Retrieved 16 February 2014.

1. Elizabeth Crawford (15 April 2013). [*The Women's Suffrage Movement in Britain and Ireland: A Regional Survey*](https://books.google.com/books?id=uUrKCVn9VZkC&pg=PA201). Routledge. p. 201. ISBN 978-1-136-01054-5.

1. Birdwood, George (1872). *On competition and the Indian Civil Service: a paper read before the East India Association, Tuesday, May 21, 1872*. Printed by W.J. Johnson. p. 2. [JSTOR 60243628](https://www.jstor.org/stable/60243628)

1. Long, James (1876). *The position of Turkey in relation to British interests in India*. p. 32. [JSTOR 60235578](https://www.jstor.org/stable/60235578)

1. Sabyasachi Bhattacharya (1 January 2005). [*The Financial Foundations of the British Raj: Ideas and Interests in the Reconstruction of Indian Public Finance 1858–1872*](https://books.google.com/books?id=BABluVWfMp8C&pg=PA11). Orient Blackswan. p. 11. ISBN 978-81-250-2903-8.

1. Committee., Greek (1879). *Report of the meeting at Willis' rooms, Saturday, May 17th, 1879, in support of the claims of Greece*. The Greek Committee. p. 4. [JSTOR 60226976](https://www.jstor.org/stable/60226976)

1. Joseph Mazzini Wheeler (2010 [1889]). [*A Biographical Dictionary of Freethinkers of All Ages and Nations*](https://books.google.com/books?id=6uwCg4u2M3kC&pg=PT38). Library of Alexandria. p. 38. ISBN 978-1-4655-6286-9.

1. Evans Bell (1865). [*The Rajah and Principality of Mysore: With a Letter to the Right Hon. Lord Stanley, M.P.*](https://books.google.com/books?id=01MOAAAAQAAJ). T. Richards.

1. Evans Bell (1868). [*Retrospects and Prospects of Indian Policy*](https://archive.org/details/retrospectsandp00bellgoog). Trübner.

1. [*The Westminster Review*](https://books.google.com/books?id=TFsVAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA536). J. Chapman. 1869. p. 536.

1. Evans Bell (1870). [*Is India a Conquered Country And, If So, what Then?*](https://books.google.com/books?id=gmZgHQAACAAJ). W. C. Johnson.

1. Thomas Evans Bell & Frederick Tyrrell (1871). [*Public Works and the Public Service in India*](https://archive.org/details/publicworksandp00tyrrgoog). Trübner.

1. Evans Bell (1882). [*The Annexation of the Punjaub and the Maharajah Dulcep Singh*](https://archive.org/details/annexationpunja00bellgoog). Trubner & Company.

1. ["Humanist Heritage: Ernestine Mills (1871-1959)"](https://heritage.humanists.uk/ernestine-mills/). *Humanist Heritage*. Retrieved 2021-12-04.

1. Crawford, Elizabeth (2003-09-02). [*The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928*](https://books.google.com/books?id=ygXwlK_mj50C&dq=Ernestine+Mills+hertha+ayrton&pg=PT84). Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-43401-4.

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