Description

Papers descriptive of family life and offical duties of forest officials in the Central Provinces, the Himalayas and Simla; family papers from the Maldive Islands.

Donated by Ms Heather Bell.

File 1: Letters and diaries of the Bell family, 1916 to 1937.

• Diary of a voyage to India kept by Phyllis Bell (née Aitken), 1916.
• Private accounts of C.F. Bell, I.F.S., Chief Conservator of Forests, Central Provinces, 1932-1935.
• Private accounts of C.F. Bell, I.F.S., Chief Conservator of Forests, Central Provinces, 1936-1937.
• Notebook of dinner party guests and menus, Nagpur, 1930s.
• Letter from a former staff member, 14.6.1927. Mentions birth of a daughter, illness and observaiton of a meeting of forest officials.
• Notes from a child’s language lesson – Humpty Dumpty in Sinhalese.
• Letter from Heather Bell to her sister Nancy, 29.12.1936. Details of a tiger hunt.
• Collection of letters home from a tour in the Himalayas, from Bethia N. Bell, 1935.
• Handwritten notes of the HImalayan tour by B.N. Bell.
• TS version of the above, with photocopied images.
• TS notes ‘The life of a forest officer’ by B.M. Bell.
• ‘Himalayan highlights’, sketches of life in Simla written by Phyllis bell. Guests and seating plans for dinners at Barnes Court, Simla and the Viceregal Lodge, Simla.

File 2: papers relating to the Maldive Islands.

• ‘Invaders and explorers in the Maldives, 1343-1922: Ibn Batuta to H.C.P. Bell’, text of a lecture presented by at the Maldives exhibition at the British Mueseum, 1994.
• Mrs Lawson Robins, ‘English lady’s visit to the Maldives’, revised by H.C.P. Bell. Photocopy of notebook published in 1920.
• Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1882, Extra No. Offprint, ‘Ibn Batuta in the Maldives and Ceylon’.
• Copy of the catalogue of the H.C.P. Bell Collection in the Natioanl Archives, Colombo.