Bell, THOMAS

Bell, THOMAS, naturalist, was born at Poole, Dorsetshire, in 1792, and in 1813 entered Guy's Hospital, where from 1817 till 1861 he held the post of dental surgeon, whilst also lecturing on comparative anatomy. In 1836 he became professor of Zoology in King's College, London. Elected in 1828 a Fellow of the Royal Society, from 1840 to 1853 he acted as its secretary, and he was also president of the Linnean Society (1853-61), and first president of the Society (1844). He was author of British Quadrupeds (1837; 2d ed. 1874), British Reptiles (1839), British Stalk-eyed Crustacea (1853), and the article 'Reptiles' in Darwin's Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle. In 1832 he commenced a Monograph of the Testudinata, of which only eight parts appeared. The plates were reissued in 1872 with letterpress by Dr Gray. He was associated with Professor Owen in the production of Fossil Reptilia of London Clay (1849). His, too, was the classic edition of White's Selborne (2 vols. 1878). Retiring from practice in his seventieth year, he had purchased the Wakes of Selborne from the grandnieces of Gilbert White, and there, after enjoying a hale and hearty old age, he died March 13, 1880.