Passport details
Born in Washington, County Durham, 14 July 1868.
Claim to fame
It might seem a stretch to call Gertrude Bell “lesser known”, given that Werner Herzog made a biopic about her, Queen of the Desert, starring Nicole Kidman. However, the movie was a critical and commercial flop and Gertrude is still far from being a household name. Her achievements were extraordinarily wide-ranging: she was a precocious and gifted scholar, travelled round the world twice, spoke better Arabic than TE Lawrence, translated Persian poetry and carried out archaeological work in Turkey and Mesopotamia. Her greatest and most troubled legacy is Iraq itself. As the modern Middle East took shape from the ruins of the Ottoman empire, Gertrude argued in favour of Iraqi self-government, helped establish its borders, draft its constitution, and founded its National Museum.
Supporting documentation
Gertrude was not only a brilliant letter-writer and diarist, but also a pioneering photographer, documenting her globetrotting adventures and her archaeological work in thousands of images. These are archived along with her papers and working library at Newcastle University.
Distinguishing marks
There’s a kind of kinship between Gertrude and the marvellous Hester Stanhope exactly a century earlier: both were unconventional women who had to look beyond their own cultures to find an outlet for their talents. Tall, striking and brilliant like Hester, Gertrude also stirred up the same kind of misogyny. Objecting to Gertrude’s support for the Arabs, the diplomat and traveller Sir Mark Sykes called her “the silly chattering windbag of conceited, gushing, flat-chested, man-woman, globe-trotting, rump-wagging, blethering ass!” However, Gertrude is not exactly an icon of early feminism. She openly campaigned against giving women the vote and was the honorary secretary of the Anti-Suffrage League.