Andrew Bell (engraver)

Andrew Bell (1726–1809) was a Scottish engraver and printer, who co-founded Encyclopædia Britannica with Colin Macfarquhar.

Andrew Bell by George Watson

Bell's copperplate of a first rate ship-of-war from the First Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica - "undoubtedly the noblest machine that ever was invented"

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]