2812

George Kennedy Allen Bell, Dean of Canterbury 1931

Half-length full face looking to the viewer, wearing his frock coat and bands, his left hand raised to his cheek

Oil on canvas, 90.5 x 60 cm (35 ⅝ x 23 ⅝ in.)

Inscribed lower left: de László / 1931

NPG Album, 1931, p. 7

Sitters’ Book II, f. 68: George Cicestr: April 14, 1931

The Office of Bishoprics of the Church of England, The Deanery, Canterbury

In January 1931, Bishop Bell officiated the marriage of de László’s son Stephen to Diana von Versen. The artist painted the present portrait to mark his gratitude. In his diary, de László recorded that he started the portrait on 14 April, and made a few notes about the personality of his sitter in his own words: “During the whole day – Bell – Bishop of Chichester – sat for his pic, which I paint in memory of Stephens’ wedding – He is a very genuine sympathetic man with clean, best intention, trustworthy, good – nature above the average of intelligence [sic].”^[1] Bell sat again the following morning, and the morning of 18 April, when the artist finished the portrait. The sitter gave the portrait to the Office of Bishoprics of the Church of England in Canterbury, where he was Dean from March 1924 to June 1929. It was not the only instance when Bell gave a personal gift to the Church.^[2] De László also painted the sitter’s wife, Henrietta [2813], in 1934, which remains in a private collection.

George Kennedy Allen Bell was born on 4  February 1883 on Hayling Island, South Hampshire. He was the eldest of the five sons (and seven children) of the Reverend James Allen Bell, later Canon of Norwich, and his wife Sarah Georgina, daughter of John George Megaw, merchant banker of  Co. Tyrone, Ireland and Upper Norwood, London. He was educated at Temple Grove, East Sheen, and was a Scholar at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford.  At Oxford, he established a reputation as a poet, becoming general editor of the ‘Golden Anthologies’ of verse while still an undergraduate and he continued writing poetry all his life. At the outbreak of war in 1914 Bell central to Lambeth Palace administration under Archbishop Randall Davidson [4632] and the intermediary between the Archbishop and a host of leaders in Church and State both at home and abroad.  

On 18 January 1918 he married Henrietta Millicent Grace,^[3] the eldest daughter of the late Canon R. J. Livingstone from Co. Mayo, Ireland and the Hon. Mrs. Livingstone from Co. Kerry, Ireland. There were no children of the marriage. Henrietta was a second cousin to Lucy Guinness,^[4] Philip de László’s wife and the two couples were close friends.^[5] 

In 1924 he was appointed Dean of Canterbury at the age of forty-one, Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald’s first important ecclesiastical appointment. Valuing scholarship, he was one of the first to provide visitors to the cathedral with information resources for them to study. He commissioned drama and music for use in the cathedral and its surrounding buildings as well as Murder in the Cathedral from T.S. Eliot. Bell adopted a forward-looking policy when he became Bishop of Chichester in 1929. His willingness to try new methods of evangelism was evinced by a series of appointments, at the time, unique in the Church of England. He continued his pioneering work of encouraging the arts and was one of the leaders of the Life and Work movement. During the Second World War he made very plain opposition to the indiscriminate bombing of civilians in Germany, and Dresden in particular. On 9 February 1944, he made his celebrated speech against blanket bombing in the House of Lords. After the war his work to re-establish fellowship between the German and other European churches was a major contribution to the success of the first meeting of the World Council of Churches in 1948.  He was the first chairman of its central committee from 1948 to 1954, and honorary president from 1954 until his death. In 1958 the Federal German Republic awarded him the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit.

He lived at Lambeth Palace in London when Chaplain to Randall Davidson, and later at The Deanery, Canterbury and The Bishop’s Palace, Chichester. In retirement he lived in the precincts at Canterbury. He wrote a number of books on Christian unity, Randall Davidson’s biography (1935), and Christianity and World Order (1940). Bell’s interests covered an astonishingly wide field. He was a close friend and patron of T.S. Eliot, Vaughan Williams, and of a number of artists such as Quentin Bell, and Hans Feibusch. He was closely concerned with the problems of Church-State relations whilst also excelling at personal contacts in his diocese, having a passionate concern for the individual.  

He died 3 October 1958 aged seventy-five in Canterbury, Kent.  

Original frame by Emile Remy, 153 King’s Road, London S.W., pattern n° 24

PROVENANCE:

Presented by the sitter to the Office of Bishoprics of the Church of England, 1931

EXHIBITED:

•M. Knoedler & Company, Inc., London, Portraits by Philip A. de László,M.V.O., Loan Exhibition held in aid of The Artists’ General Benevolent Institution, June - July, 1933, no. 39

•The House of Lords, The Queen’s Robing Room, George Bell, 1883-1958, Bishop of Chichester, 2-24 October 2008

LITERATURE:

•Jasper, Ronald C. D. George Bell – Bishop of Chichester, 1967, pl. 4, opp. p. 69, ill.

•Foster, Paul (ed.), Bell of Chichester (1883-1958): A Prophetic Bishop, University College Chichester, 2004, pp. 121-122, pl. 1, opp. p. 96, ill.

•Booklet accompanying the exhibition at the House of Lords: George Bell, 1883-1958, Bishop of Chichester, 2008, ill.

•The Friends of Peterborough Cathedral Journal, 2009, pp.16-7, ill. p. 16

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 26

•DLA123-0119, letter from George Kennedy Allen Bell, Bishop of Chichester to de László, 8 April 1931

•László, Philip de, 1931 diary, private collection, pp. 108-112

We are grateful to Paul Foster, Emeritus Professor of English, University of Chichester,  for his help in tracing this picture and compiling this entry

SdeL 2008