Thomas Bell (zoologist)
Thomas Bell FRS (11 October 1792 – 13 March 1880) was an English zoologist, surgeon and writer, born in Poole, Dorset, England. Career. Bell, like his mother Susan, took a keen interest in natural history which his mother also encouraged in his younger cousin Philip Henry Gosse. Bell left Poole in 1813 for his training as a dental surgeon in London. He combined two careers, becoming Professor of Zoology at King's College London in 1836 (on the strength of amateur research) and lecturing on anatomy at Guy's Hospital. He became a fellow of the Royal College  of Surgeons in 1844. He was President of the Linnean Society in 1858. Bell was at the heart of the scientific establishment and when Charles Darwin returned to London from the "Beagle" expedition on 2 December 1836, Bell was quick to take on the task of describing the reptile specimens. He was also entrusted with the specimens of Crustacea collected on the voyage. He was the authority in this field; his book "British Stalke-eyed Crustacea" is a masterwork. He played a significant part in the inception of Darwin's theory of natural selection in March 1837 when he confirmed  that the giant Galápagos tortoises were native to the islands, not brought in by buccaneers for food as Darwin had thought. He supported the arrangements for publication of "Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle", but then was very slow to make progress on the work, and though the first parts of work were published in 1838, Bell's contribution on reptiles ("Part 5") was published in two numbers, in 1842 and 1843, and he subsequently failed to take any action on the Crustacea. As President of the Linnean Society, Bell chaired the meeting on 1 July 1858 at which  Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace's theories on natural selection were first presented in a joint reading of their papers "On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection". Bell appears to have been unimpressed, and in his annual presidential report presented in May 1859 wrote that "The year which has passed has not, indeed, been marked by any of those striking discoveries which at once revolutionize, so to speak, the department of science on which they bear". In his seventieth year Bell retired to "The Wakes", a  house at Selborne, where he took a keen interest in its former resident, the amateur naturalist Gilbert White. In 1877 he published a new edition of White's book "The Natural History of Selborne". Bell died at Selborne in 1880. Personal life. Bell married Jane Sarah, daughter of William Roberts, Esq., at St Mary's Church, Rotherhithe on 3 December 1832. The couple had one child, a daughter, Susan Gosse, born 29 March 1836. Susan pre-deceased her parents on 4 January 1854. Jane died on 29 June 1873. A few of Bell's works were illustrated by Jane, who  signed herself "Jane S. Bell". Legacy. Bell is commemorated in the scientific names of several species and subspecies of reptiles.