Josephine Bell

Who was Josephine Bell?

Josephine Bell, pseudonym of Doris Bell Collier, was an English physician and writer. Bell wrote nineteen novels and forty-five mystery novels in her lifetime, as well as radio plays, short stories, and series for women's magazines.

Bell was born in Manchester, England in 1897 and studied at Godolphin School between 1910 and 1916. She then trained at Newnham College, Cambridge until 1919. At the University College Hospital in London she was granted M.R.C.S. and L.R.C.P. in 1922, and a M.B. B.S. in 1924.

In 1923, she married Dr. Norman Dyer Ball, and the couple had a son and three daughters. From 1927 until 1935 the couple practiced medicine in Greenwich and London. When her husband died, Bell moved to Guildford, Surrey. From 1954 through 1962 she was a member of the management committee of St. Luke's Hospital.

Bell began to write detective novels beginning in 1936 under her pen name. Many of her works used a medical background and featured the fictional character Dr. David Wintringham, who worked at Research Hospital in London as a junior assistant physician.

In 1953, Bell helped found the Crime Writers' Association and served as chair from 1959 to 1960.