Having read earlier entries, Florence nee Bell and Randal Pearson in fact had three sons, Noel and Christopher as mentioned, but also Randal born 22Feb 1922 who as a Sergeant Observer/Wireless Operator RAFVR, was killed along with the pilot at 11pm on 23rd December 1942 when the Blenheim bomber they were flying crashed shortly after take-off from Cranfield aerodrome in Bedfordshire due to engine failure. He is buried in Kempston Cemetry, Bedford. I have letters he wrote to his and my parents during his training as well as a photo in his full flying kit. As the eldest in my generation of Bell cousins, he was very much looked up to by we younger ones. It is perhaps ironic that he should have been flying a Blenheim, as, prior to joining the RAF, he was a trainee designer/draughtsman at the Bristol Aviation Company. A further thought, Thomas George Bell's second wife was Maggie Dickinson. She outlived him but suffered severely from rheumatoid arthritis and used a battery-powered tiller-steered bath chair to get about. She lived in Lytham St. Annes, but when she came to stay with us in Doncaster Yorkshire, it was always my job to keep it charged up.
Just browsing and picked up your search trail. I am a great granddaugher of Joseph and Margaret Bell. My grandfather was Fred. Joseph was born in Otley (Hawksworth) and had two brothers who died in childhood. His parents were George and Frances Bell who met in Newton on Ouse. This is the estate village for Beningborough Hall, and I Suspect that both of them were estate employees. Frances father George May was a tailor, and most of their relatives seem to be craftsmen or farmers. I have tracked both the families in part to the seventeenth century. Georges father was Oliver and not Matthew. I have a copy of the marriage certificate. I have gone down that false route to the Fall family myself. The family seem to have lived mainly in Bolton on Swale and surrounding villages for as long as I can establish, and undoubtedly could be traced back to the border reiver family of Bells from Gilsland, Cumbria, and Annan as the border was remarkably fluid until the early sixteen hundreds.
Joseph worked for the Lancashire Yorkshire railway and presumably met Margaret Reason in Liverpool. Margaret's grandfather, Thomas Reason was a flour merchant from Lincoln . Her brother and her grandfather were both Mersey pilots.
Joseph pursued his railway career through Lancashire and eventually set up the Wagon Works where most of his sons also worked, although Thomas was a railway wagon agent based in Leeds with an office in Great George Street. He had a house in Street Lane. On his death, Stanley returned to the family firm, and I understand from my grandmother, probably not the most unbiased of sources, that there was a bit of a family dispute when the firm became a limited company, probably on the deaths of Joseph and son John, his right hand man.
Yes Percy went to Canada and became mayor of Beebe Quebec. They used to send us food parcels in the war.
I have huge amounts of further information, if you have any queries.
Sylvia nee Bell
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