Andrew Bell (engraver)
Andrew Bell (1726–1809) was a Scottish engraver and printer, who co-founded Encyclopædia Britannica with Colin Macfarquhar.
Biography
Bell was born in Edinburgh in 1726, his father a baker. He had little formal education and was apprenticed to the engraver Richard Cooper.[1] Bell was a colourful Scot. His height was four foot six inches (1.37 m); he had crooked legs and an enormous nose that he would sometimes augment with a papier-mache version whenever anyone stared at his natural nose.[2] Bell began work as an engraver of crests, names, etc. on dog collars.[2] Despite his small stature, he deliberately rode the tallest horse available in Edinburgh, dismounting by a ladder to the cheers of onlookers.[2]
Bell produced almost all of the copperplate engravings for the 1st–4th editions of the Britannica: 160 for the 1st, 340 for the 2nd, 542 for the 3rd, and 531 for the 4th.[3] By contrast, the 50 plates of the Supplement to the 3rd edition were engraved by D. Lizars.[citation needed]
After Macfarquhar died in 1793, Bell bought out his heirs and became sole owner of the Britannica until his own death in 1809. He quarrelled with his son-in-law, Thomson Bonar, and refused to speak with him for the last ten years of his life.[citation needed]
Family
He married Anne Wake who was the daughter of an excise officer in 1756.[4] She was apparently the granddaughter of the artist John Scougal and through this connection Bell inherited many of Scougal's paintings.[5]
References
- ^ Kafker, Frank A. (1 October 2008). "The Achievement of Andrew Bell and Colin Macfarquhar as the First Publishers of the Encyclopaedia Britannica". Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies. 18 (2): 139–152. doi:10.1111/j.1754-0208.1995.tb00185.x.
- ^ a b c Kogan, Herman (1958). The Great EB: The Story of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. LCCN 58-8379.
- ^ Gunn, Ann. ‘Five Hundred and Forty-Two Copperplates’: Andrew Bell’s Illustrations for the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1771–97.” Journal of the Scottish Society for Art History. V. 22, (2017–2018): 7-14.
- ^ Kafker, Frank A. (1 October 2008). "THE ACHIEVEMENT OF ANDREW BELL and COLIN MACFARQUHAR AS THE FIRST PUBLISHERS OF THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA". Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies. 18 (2): 139–152. doi:10.1111/j.1754-0208.1995.tb00185.x. ISSN 1754-0194.
- ^ Cassell's Old and New Edinburgh vol. II p. 222/3
- Articles with short description
- Short description is different from Wikidata
- Use dmy dates from August 2021
- All articles with unsourced statements
- Articles with unsourced statements from February 2019
- Articles with unsourced statements from June 2018
- Articles with ISNI identifiers
- Articles with VIAF identifiers
- Articles with BNE identifiers
- Articles with GND identifiers
- Articles with LCCN identifiers
- Articles with NKC identifiers
- Articles with NLA identifiers
- Articles with PLWABN identifiers
- Articles with DSI identifiers
- Articles with DTBIO identifiers
- Articles with Trove identifiers
- Articles with SNAC-ID identifiers
- 1726 births
- 1809 deaths
- Artists from Edinburgh
- 18th-century engravers
- 19th-century engravers
- Scottish engravers
- Scottish businesspeople
- Scottish encyclopedists
- Encyclopædia Britannica