.jpg) Watercolour painting by John Bell of the Bell Ironworks under construction at Port Clarence, c. 1853 | |
| Company type | Manufacturing company |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1809 |
| Founder | William Losh, Thomas Wilson, Thomas Bell |
| Defunct | 1923 merged |
| Successor | Dorman Long |
| Headquarters | , England |
Key people | Lowthian Bell |
| Products | Iron, Soda |
Losh, Wilson and Bell, later Bells, Goodman, then Bells, Lightfoot and finally Bell Brothers, was a leading Northeast England manufacturing company, founded in 1809 by the partners William Losh, Thomas Wilson, and Thomas Bell.
The firm was founded at Newcastle-upon-Tyne with an ironworks and an alkali works nearby at Walker. The alkali works were the first in England to make soda using the Leblanc process; the ironworks was the first to use Cleveland Ironstone, presaging the 1850s boom in ironmaking on Teesside.
The so-called discoverer of Cleveland Ironstone, the mining engineer John Vaughan, ran a rolling mill for the company before leaving to found the major rival firm Bolckow Vaughan. The other key figure in the company was Lowthian Bell, son of Thomas Bell; he became perhaps the best known ironmaster in England.
As Bell Brothers, the firm continued until 1931, when it was taken over by rival Dorman Long.