| Bell | William Henry Somerset | | | Was born near Fort Beaufort, Eastern Province, Aug 1, 1856. He is second son of Colonel Charles Bell, and grandson of Geo. Jarvis, solicitor, of Grahamstown. He was educated at Douglas, Isle of Man, and at St Andrew's College, Grahamstown. At the early age of fourteen he, in conjunction with an elder brother, aged 16, printed and published a small weekly newspaper called the Kariega News, which ran for a year, much of the plant being made by these two boys. In 1877 Mr W H S Bell served with the Albany Mounted Volunteers in the Galeka Campaign. He was admitted as an Attorney of the Supreme Court, Cape Colony, in 1879, and a Notary of the same Court in 1878. In 1884 he founded and became editor of the Cape Law Journal, of which he continued editor until 1896, when he went to England on account of ill-health; he resumed the editorship in the beginning of 1900, and still continues to occupy that position. He was a member of the Reform Committee in Dec, 1895; was arrested for high treason against the SAR on Jan 9, 1896, and lodged in the Pretoria gaol with some 63 other Reformers; was tried in April, 1896, and with 59 others was convicted of the minor offence of Laesae majestatis, and sentenced to two years' imprisonment, £2,000 fine, and three years' banishment. After serving about one month's imprisonment his sentence was commuted to a fine of £2,000. Towards the end of 1896 he gave up business in Johannesburg, and went to England for rest and change. In 1898 he became Chairman of the Estate Finance and Mines Corporation, Ltd, in London, which position he resigned at the end of 1899, and went back to SA, and devoted himself to improving the Cape Law Journal, and also compiled his Digest of the Cape Law Journal, a work of about 600 pages, published 1901. In that year he altered the name of the Cape Law Journal to the South African Law Journal, and in June of the same year he resumed in Johannesburg his practice as a solicitor. He joined the Rand Rifles, and was a captain in the force at the time it was disbanded. In 1902 he, in conjunction with Mr Manfred Nathan, LLD, compiled and published the Legal Handbook of British South Africa (about 750 pp.). He was one of the representatives of the ORC in the Inter-Colonial conference on the Companies' Law. He was a member of the firm of Ayliff, Bell & Hutton, and later of Bell & Hutton, in Grahamstown; of Caldicott & Bell, in Kimberley; of Bell & Mullins, in Johannesburg; and since 1901 he has been a member of the firm of Bell & Tancred, of Johannesburg. He has been a member of the Council of the Incorporated Law Society of the Transvaal for many years; he is also a member of the Council of the Incorporated Law Society of the Cape: Colony. He is a director of several companies, and Chairman of the African Book Company, Ltd He married Aug 3, 1880, Charlotte Elizabeth, daughter of Geo. Wood, jnr, of Grahamstown. | Unknown |
