Prophet at the Gate: Norman Murray Bell and the Quest for Peace

By Wayne Facer

Norman Murray Bell (1887-1962) may be regarded as a prophet: a person who speaks in a visionary way about a cause. His cause was peace. His life provides a window into the peace movement in New Zealand, particularly during the period between the two world wars. Bell was educated at New Zealand's oldest and most prestigious Church of England scho

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blackstone Editions
• Release date: Jun 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781775355663

Wayne Facer

Wayne Facer is an independent scholar with a postgraduate degree in history from Massey University. He joined the Auckland Unitarian Church while studying economics at the University of Auckland. His interests include the place of freethought in New Zealand's religious history.

Book preview

PROPHET AT THE GATE

Norman Murray Bell and the Quest for Peace

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Wayne Facer

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Blackstone Editions

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

www.BlackstoneEditions.com

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PROPHET AT THE GATE

Norman Murray Bell and the Quest for Peace

© 2021 by Wayne Facer

All rights reserved.

ISBN 9781775355663

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Front cover image:

Caspar David Friedrich

Monastery Graveyard in the Snow

The painting was destroyed by air raids during World War II and only a black and white photograph survives.

Source: Wikiart Visual Art Encyclopaedia

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For Gareth and Aena

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Let the Māori karakia (prayer)

speak to the human family

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Let peace reign

on all the people of the world

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Kia tau te rangimārie

Ki runga i ngā iwi o te ao

List of Illustrations

Introduction:

George Clarendon Beale, Untitled (Parihaka and Mount Taranaki), 1881

Collection of Puke Ariki, New Plymouth. TM2000.245

Chapter 1:

1. First Albertlanders leave for New Zealand

Albertland Museum and Heritage Centre

2. The Matilda Wattenbach leaving England, 1862

Albertland Museum and Heritage Centre

3. Farewell to Matilda Wattenbach

Albertland Museum and Heritage Centre

4. Rev. William Rawson Brame

Albertland Museum and Heritage Centre

5. Rev. Samuel Edger

Albertland Museum and Heritage Centre

6. Vessels loading timber at Port Albert

Albertland Museum and Heritage Centre

7. Dr James Bell and Mrs Henrietta Bell

Albertland Museum and Heritage Centre

8. Sarah Jerome Becroft

Albertland Museum and Heritage Centre

9. Annie Bell with her three sons wearing Bell clan kilts

Norman Murray Bell Papers, Christchurch City Libraries, ANZC Archives, Archive 280

10. Christ’s College, Christchurch

Obtained from the collection, and used with permission of, Christchurch City Libraries, File Reference CCL PhotoCD17, ING 0018

11. River Avon, Christchurch

Chapter 2:

1. Norman Murray Bell and friend, London, 1910

Norman Murray Bell Papers, Christchurch City Libraries, ANZC Archives, Archive 280

2. Professor Francis Haslam

A History of the University of Canterbury (Christchurch: University of Canterbury, 1973)

3. William Whetham

Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge

4. Ernest Rutherford

The Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge

5. Charles Chilton

Creative Commons 4.0 International License. Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, vol. 60 (1930)

6. John Maynard Keynes

7. Bertrand Russell

8. Charles Voysey

9. Walter Walsh

Unknown photographer, Walter Walsh by Lafayette

© National Portrait Gallery, London. 24 July 1928. With permission

10. Alfred Holt

Courtesy of Liverpool City Council Libraries & Archives

11. Muspratt Laboratory, Liverpool University

12. United College courtyard, St Andrews University

Creative Commons 2.0 Jared & Corin

13. Andrew Carnegie

14. Professor James Irvine

Norman Murray Bell Papers, Christchurch City Libraries, ANZC Archives, Archive 280

15. War Workers, Chemical Laboratory, St Andrews University

Norman Murray Bell Papers, Christchurch City Libraries, ANZC Archives, Archive 280

16. University of Bern, Main Building

Creative Commons 3.0 Bobo 11

Chapter 3:

1. Norman Murray Bell and his brother Harold

Norman Murray Bell Papers, Christchurch City Libraries, ANZC Archives, Archive 280

2. Albert Schweitzer

Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons 3.0 license

3. John A. Lee

4. Rotoaira Prison Camp

Acting Jailer Roto Aira forwarding photos of Whaka-Papanui bridge [ACGS 1665 202/1918/8/6] Archives New Zealand The Department of Internal Affairs Te Tari Taiwhenua.

Chapter 4:

1. The No More War Committee, c. 1930

Courtesy Efford family & Voices Against War website identifier VAW 083

2. Third New Zealand Esperanto Congress, Christchurch, 1931

Photo provided by Brent Efford

3. Chancery Lane, Christchurch, 1932

James Fitzgerald, Chancery Lane, Christchurch, New Zealand. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū; 2011, reproduced with permission.

4. Ensom Essay competition winners

The Press, 6 October 1931, p. 11. NLNZ, https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19311006.2.83.3

5. Frank B. Kellogg and Aristide Briand

6. Frederick and Esther Sinclaire

7. Peace march, c.1937

Norman Murray Bell Papers, Christchurch City Libraries, ANZC Archives, Archive 280

8. Ursula Bethell

Ursula Bethell Papers (MB558, Ref 16144) Macmillan Brown Library, Christchurch, New Zealand

9. Rita Angus painting self portrait, 1936-1937, by Jean Bertram.

Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand (CA000242/001/0001)

10. Cambridge Terrace apartments

With permission of Canterbury Museum, 1984.272.2

11. Ian Milner, Denis Glover and Robert Lowry

Courtesy Alexander Turnbull Library. Reference Number: 1/2-075453-F

12. Rev. James Chapple

Auckland War Memorial Museum Library, Auckland Unitarian Church collection

13. Socialist Sunday School wagon trip, Auckland, 1920s

Ref: 1/2-002175-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/23125109. Reproduced with permission

Chapter 5:

1. Douglas Lilburn conducting the National Symphony Orchestra

Archives New Zealand, Creative Commons 2.0

2. Lincoln Efford

Photo provided by Brent Efford

3. Portrait of Blanche Edith Baughan by Clifford

Photo provided by the National Library of Australia https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-136622944

4. Norman Murray Bell outside his house, c.1950

Norman Murray Bell Papers, Christchurch City Libraries, ANZC Archives, Archive 280

5. Norman Murray Bell and a friend on a cycling trip, 1950s

Norman Murray Bell Papers, Christchurch City Libraries, ANZC Archives, Archive 280

6. Hiroshima Day march, August 6, 1961

Photo provided by Brent Efford

7. Lloyd Geering becoming a Member of the Order of New Zealand

With permission of Stuff/Dominion Post

Afterword:

1. Young Larry Ross

Courtesy of Laurie Ross and the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone Peacemaking Association

2. Bertrand Russell

Courtesy of Laurie Ross, Nuclear Free Peacemakers .org.nz

3. Larry Ross with the logo of Nuclear Free New Zealand

Courtesy of Laurie Ross and the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone Peacemaking Association

4. Stuart Macaskill

Courtesy of Patricia Macaskill

5. Elspeth Vallance

6. Derek McCullough

7. Larry Ross receiving the Christchurch Peace City award

Foreword

The life of Norman Murray Bell is surely one of the most moving stories in modern New Zealand history. This biography is so moving and compelling that readers will wonder why this name is not as familiar as those of Archibald Baxter, or Ormond Burton, or even Te Whiti O Rongomai. Norman Bell’s courage, foresight and depth of experience are profound, yet he has been largely forgotten. So we are deeply in the debt of Wayne Facer for making this story more accessible and revealing its richness.

Norman Murray Bell won high respect at first because of his academic brilliance. From his very ordinary background, he gained scholarships to Christ’s College and Canterbury University College and then gained a scholarship to Cambridge. Wayne Facer has been able to fill in many of the gaps in the story of the next few years, tracing his links with sundry Chemistry laboratories, and the recognition he received also in the Arts and Theology. He was truly a polymath.

After he returned to New Zealand his deep principles led him to refuse to take the easy way out of war service. He paid a high price, indeed a higher price than most, because he was an intellectual and the opportunities for employment were therefore limited. He was thereafter evidently dismissed by many as an eccentric. That must have been acutely painful to a man who had pondered issues so deeply.

Wayne has traced with superb care the very different world that Bell subsequently contributed to. He was active in socialist, radical religious and reformist circles, mingling with a brilliant circle of artists, writers and musicians. People like Lincoln Efford, Frederick Sinclaire, Archibald Barrington, Douglas Lilburn and Rita Angus were a significant circle of people who contributed very profoundly to New Zealand culture.

I can hardly appreciate the pain for Bell that he was not able to make a contribution for which he was so equipped. Yet I am impressed at the new opportunities he found to contribute to New Zealand, in fighting for the rights of the Māori and Samoan peoples, in arguing for a richer concept of pacifism and in advocating vegetarianism.

So this is an important biography, which needs to find its way onto the shelves of every school and public library. The author is tentative about calling Norman Murray Bell a prophet, but in my view, he exactly reflects the burden of the prophetic tradition. For fundamentally those prophets courageously exposed sin and hypocrisy and exposed the behaviour of their people in the light of a plumbline of right values. Bell played such a role among the New Zealanders of his day, and the way he was treated exposes their deficiencies. I hope very much that this biography may restore Bell’s reputation as a great New Zealander, and congratulate the author for his invaluable work.

Peter Lineham, PhD MNZM

Professor Emeritus of History

Massey University

Timeline