page_title: Hector Hercules Bell
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Hector Hercules Bell / Early life
caption_attribution_description: English: Hector Hercules Bell in 1924, at an event to test the Church Street Bridge. He was at the time a councillor on Richmond City Council, representing the council on the MMBW and HTT.
context_page_description: Hector Hercules Bell CBE was an Australian contractor, municipal councillor, and tramway administrator. Following an initially itinerant working life, Bell married and became a successful businessman, later being elected as a councillor to Richmond City Council. Bell was appointed to the board of the Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board in 1919, and became the MMTB's second chairman in 1936, a position he held until 1949. Under Bell, the MMTB converted the remaining cable trams to electric trams or buses, increased the MMTB's usage of buses, and work towards modernising the tram system, while returning strong surpluses. Bell was primarily a supporter of electric trams advocating their advantages over buses. During his career he ran for a seat on the Victorian Legislative Council, and was occasionally accused of unethical behaviour.
context_section_description: Hector Hercules Bell was born on 1 December 1876 to Frank Richborough Herbert Bell, a railway worker, and Emily (née Roberts), in Richmond, Victoria (an inner suburb of Melbourne). He was the seventh child of the family, and ran away home at 14, spending three years undertaking itinerant work in rural Victoria. Bell then returned to Melbourne to become a blacksmith and met Emma Watson (d.1945), whom he married 1895.
  Following marriage, he and Emma moved to Perth, Western Australia, where Bell became a construction contractor, working on a variety of projects including The Causeway over the Swan River. After two years in Perth they returned to Richmond where Bell worked as a confectioner, wood merchant, and contractor. Bell was elected as a councillor to Richmond City Council (amalgamated into City of Yarra in 1994) in 1911, and served in that capacity for 26 years. As member of the councils Labor faction, he became involved in civic issues, and became chairman of the public works committee. During his councillorship be became Richmond's representative on the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works in 1913, and the newly formed Hawthorn Tramway Trust in 1915. In concert with his career as a councillor he continued his contracting business, and due the success of this enterprise and the accompanying wealth, in 1924 he, Emma, and their three children moved to Hawthorn.
  During his term on council Bell became aligned with the right faction of the Labor party, and become acquainted with John Wren. Through his association with Wren, Bell began speculating on land in Melbourne's west. He also became implicated in corrupt behaviour, including accusations of electoral irregularities, and was subjected to a council hearing in 1925, where he was charged with nine offences, all being overturned by council votes.
  in 1928 Bell ran for a seat in the Legislative Council of the Parliament of Victoria contesting the electorate of Melbourne South Province. He had been endorsed by then Labor Premier Edmond Hogan in April 1928, but lost the 2 June 1928 election to Nationalist Norman Fraser Falkiner. Although receiving 3,438 first preference votes, more than any other candidate, preferences flowed overwhelmingly to Falkiner as the election had been contested by Bell representing the Labor party and four Nationalist candidates. After preferences Falkiner won 7,360 to Bell's 3,964 and was declared elected on 5 June 1928. Bell spoke at Falkiner's declaration at St Kilda Town Hall, alleging that the Nationalists had spent £10,000 contesting the seat, an amount that he could not match, adding that he "could not afford to buy this seat". He also alleged irregularities in the voting roll, which he claimed contained deceased persons and that many poor had been struck off the roll. Falkiner died in May 1929 in London, creating a Legislative Council vacancy, Bell however withdrew from the election in early June 1929. The election was subsequently won by Nationalist candidate Harold Cohen.
caption: Hector Hercules Bell in 1924
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