J. J. (John Joy) Bell

Born in Glasgow on June 7, 1871, he was educated at Kelvinside Academy, Morrison's Academy, and the University of Glasgow, where he studied chemistry before turning to journalism. He worked for the Glasgow Evening Times and later as a sub-editor of Scots Pictorial, building a career that connected newspaper writing with fiction, verse, and drama.

He is best remembered for Wee Macgreegor (1902), the first in a successful series centered on a spirited Glasgow schoolboy. Bell wrote widely beyond that famous character, producing novels, poems, plays, and humorous sketches, often drawing on Glasgow life and using Scots-inflected dialogue that gave his work a strong local flavor.

He died on November 14, 1934. Although modern readers most often meet him through the Wee Macgreegor books, his broader career shows a writer deeply interested in the speech, habits, and comic energy of everyday Scottish life.