Remembering Lt Donald Simpson Bell

Join us at The Green Howards Museum on June 2, 2026 at 6:00 PM (BST) for a special in-person event honoring the life and legacy of Lt Donald Simpson Bell. It’s a relaxed evening to remember a true hero, share stories, and connect with others who appreciate history. Don’t miss this chance to pay tribute in a friendly, welcoming setting!

Robert Dransfield, whose grandmother was Donald Bell’s sister, Dorothy is at the museum to share the family memories and launch his book. A key voice in the book is that of Dorothy, who was still in her teens when her brothers joined up to fight in France. She was to lose her brother Donald at the Battle of the Somme as well as two of her cousins in France. Her husband was ‘gassed’ in France and this would lead to his premature death.

For the rest of her life Dorothy kept a photograph of Don on the wall in her front room as well as the letters she had received from France in a desk.

The talk will cover the experiences of the Simpson Bell family in the period before the War, during the War, and immediately after the War. It will draw on actual letters sent from France, as well as photographs and illustrations depicting family history, as well as diary entries, and reminiscence.

Like many North Yorkshire towns, Harrogate was particularly hard hit by The War. A quarter of those that enlisted did not return and there are the better part of a thousand names listed on the War Memorial which has the central location in the town. The talk also draws on actual newspaper articles that regularly picked out not only what was happening in France, but also back home in Harrogate with its influx of Belgian refugees, and the war wounded who were looked after in hospitals and rest homes in the town.

Robert Dransfield has edited a book ‘Memories in the River Stones’. The river stones represent the memories that were first collected at a family picnic shortly before The War.

The river stones in the book are the letters and images that the book presents to highlight the impact of ‘The Great War’ not just on one well known family but also on the whole of a Yorkshire town.

Robert Dransfield is a former university lecturer who initially started to research this period of family history while staying with Dorothy in the 1970’s and has more recently picked up this endeavour with the study of ‘the letters’ and other historical records of the period.

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Host or Publisher The Green Howards Museum, Richmond