Author: Bell, John Montgomerie
Biography:
BELL, John Montgomerie (1804-62: ODNB)
Sheriff and writer. He was born on 11 Feb. 1804 at Paisley to John Bell and Elliot (Montgomerie) Bell and baptised on 1 Mar. He was educated at the Paisley grammar school and Glasgow University. He was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge, on 4 June 1823 but did not reside there and did not take a degree. Bell became an advocate and was called to the Edinburgh bar in 1825. On 29 Oct. 1835 he married Anna Eliza Scott; they had five children and several of their sons also entered the legal profession. Appointed Sheriff of Kincardinshire in 1851, he published what became the standard text on the Scottish law of arbitration in 1861. He died on 16 Oct. 1862 following a fall from his horse at Linnhouse, Midcalder. He was buried at the St. Cuthbert's cemetery on 22 Oct.; there is memorial in the churchyard. An extended and revised edition of his Byronic poem “The Martyr of Freedom,” published anonymously with “Henry St Clair” in 1833, was issued in 1863 as The Martyr of Liberty. (ODNB 28 Feb. 2019; ancestry.co.uk 28 Feb. 2019, 7 July 2025; PP) SR