2026 commemorates the centenary of the death of Gertrude Bell. Having been one of few British people to have ventured into Arabia, Bell returned from a journey to Ha’il just weeks before the outbreak of World War I. She confided in one of her diary entries that her journey was proving to be a failure. But by 1915 the value of her work had been recognised by the War Office. Indeed by 1918 the Royal Geographical Society awarded her the Founders Medal for her expeditions. Drawing on photographs and documents from the Gertrude Bell Archive at Newcastle University and the Royal Geographical Society, this lecture will introduce Gertrude Bell and explore the significance of her journey to Arabia.
Mark Jackson is professor of Byzantine Archaeology at Newcastle University. He is also co-curator of the Gertrude Bell Archive, a UNESCO International Memory of the World. As well as directing excavations, surveys and museum-based research in Türkiye and Greece he has spent over three decades using the Gertrude Bell Archive for teaching and research. https://www.ncl.ac.uk/hca/
