Gertrude Lowthian Bell

Born in County Durham in 1868, Gertrude Bell was educated at Oxford, where she earned a first-class degree in modern history. She went on to become a noted traveler and writer, making demanding journeys across the Middle East and building a deep knowledge of its languages, landscapes, and political cultures.

Bell also worked as an archaeologist and played a major role in British administration in the region during and after the First World War. She was closely involved in the politics that shaped modern Iraq and helped support the establishment of Faisal as king in Baghdad.

Alongside her political work, she cared deeply about history and preservation. She was an important force behind the founding of the Iraq Museum, and her letters, books, and photographs remain a vivid record of a remarkable and complicated life.