Marion Bell

(1891-1982)

In 1925/6 Marion Bell was the first woman, and third person, to drive around Australia. She was also the first woman to obtain a taxi license in Perth and in the 1920s with her husband Thomas Henry Bell, ran the De Luxe Sedan Taxis Garage, at 6 Elder Place, Fremantle.

I am not the least afraid. I never get lost. I have an amazing bump of locality. When I was a little girl a fortune teller took hold of my head and gasped with delight. He told me that wherever I was, whether it was the North Pole or the wildest bush, I would never get lost, and it seems as if his words were true, for I have never gone off the track up to date." (reference)

Mabel Marion Chaffey was born 18 November 1891 in Okaihau, Northland, New Zealand. Her parents Ernest Chaffey (1865-1926) and her mother Marion Williams (1868-1910) had a large family. Growing up in a remote part of New Zealand, Bell became an experienced bush woman and a competent mechanic. She claimed to have ridden a horse from one end of New Zealand to the other (reference)

Mabel Marion may have run a furrier’s business in Sydney after moving to Australia (Grant). She had two children, daughter Marion, in 1913 and a son, Cedric Cecil, in 1914.

In 1921, in Melbourne, aged 30, she married William Robert Sinclair aged 67. Sinclair (1855-1922), a Barrister from New Zealand, had been previously married; his first wife Sarah died in 1907, and he had 8 children in New Zealand.

Very soon after, in August 1922, William died in mysterious circumstances:

Sudden Death at South Melbourne- William Sinclair, 65 years, died unexpectedly yesterday at St. Vincent-place, South Melbourne, where he had been lodging since Saturday. Papers found by the police in his room indicate that be was a Barrister, who at one time practiced in New Zealand, but do not disclose whether he had any friends or relatives in Victoria. It he had the police would like to hear from them. (reference)

Later that year, in 1922, in Melbourne, Mabel married Thomas Henry Bell (1897-1973).

The two children took his surname and the family moved to Western Australia in June 1924. The Bells started a charabanc business offering trips from Fremantle to Perth and Marion drove the charabanc/ bus on many occasions.

In 1925, Mabel, as ‘Marion Bell’, announced she was going to complete a motor tour of Australia with her 11 year old daughter Marion, in an Oldsmobile Six.

‘Round’ Australia motor journeys were a national obsession in 1925. Three cars left Perth that year to attempt the trip and Marion was the third. Georgine Clarsen in her essay ‘Tracing the Outline of Nation: circling Australia by car’, makes the point that these journeys were “about asserting white, cultural ownership over the alien territory of northern Australia”. This seems to be borne out by Marion’s own words:

"Although I shall be sorry when it is all over," she said, "It seems a long time since the day in October when I set off, but every minute has been worth it. It is a wonderful feeling- this conquering the Australian bush." (reference)

She travelled 12,000 miles in five months. It was clear that this wasn’t a leisurely journey and Marion did not approach it as a tourist, enjoying the country and its sights. It was more a speed challenge and she drove day and night to achieve her aim.

For women to be competent city and town motorists was one thing, but their appropriation of men’s vehicle of progress in the ‘bush’ was quite another. Marion Bell’s journey came to symbolize advances on many fronts. (Clarsen)

Firstly Bell did so despite her husband being unhappy about it: ‘but he knew me too well to try to oppose me. I told well-meaning interferers that it was a free country and I was a free agent, and the only way to stop me was to put me in gaol.” The Australian Women’s Mirror, Jan 12 1926. (reference)

On 14 October 1925 Marion and her daughter began their tour from the Fremantle Town Hall. All the way along the journey local newspapers relayed the conditions and her progress. Some celebrated her trip, and her sense of style, and still do, as a feminist triumph, calling her ‘The Wonder Woman’. (reference)

Others called it a publicity stunt. Sewell and Poole, Oldsmobile car dealers, denied “the whole trip was an advertising ‘stunt’ put up by our firm” and said that they “did not in the slightest degree encourage Mrs Bell to undertake this venturesome trip”. (reference) However it was clear Sewell & Poole did sponsor Bell in her journey around Australia, and in every state she was greeted by the state Oldsmobile representative. ( reference)

She was also sponsored by Vulcan Oil Company, Fremantle, who arranged for supplies to be dropped in isolated areas, sometimes transported there by camel. (reference) Their representatives also met her in major towns on the east coast. ( reference) Bell also carried three spare tyres and large petrol tanks and she hung cardboard signs on the car, which advertised Plume motor spirits and Gargoyle oil. (reference)

Telegram: “Reached Marble Bar 10.10 today. Splendid luck. All Well. Have received water bags.” The water bags referred to, three in number, were sent by Joyce Bros. of Fremantle, with their compliments and best wishes.” ( reference)

Marion seems to have been completely convinced of her own invincibility:

Nov 1925, Cammoweal, Queensland: “Here a gentleman, not knowing who I was, asked me whether I was thoroughly conversant with the road to Cloncurry, as it was considered impossible to get through, but when I told him I was Marion Bell he paid me the great compliment of apologising and saying "Pass on. Everything is OK." (reference)

Like a colonial explorer who always dressed for dinner she made sure she kept up appearances; always stopping just outside a town to change clothes before her triumphant entry into a town:

“Whenever we entered a town we were dressed not in the uniform of dull khaki, but in fresh light frocks, which were, until needed, tightly wrapped in dust proof sheets.” (reference)

 Bell’s decision to take her daughter was widely questioned:

Sunday Times, 18 Oct 1925: A Foolhardy Exploit- However much the courage or foolhardiness of Mrs Marion Bell may be admired, the fact that she is taking her 11-year-old daughter with her on her motor drive to the East, via the north of this State, is causing a lot of unfavourable comment. Dangers will be encountered that no child ought to be asked to face. (reference)

 Apparently Marion Jnr lived up to her mothers expectations:

Telegram: 21 Oct 1925: Mrs. Bell's little daughter reported having killed a snake and shot a kangaroo, and said that she was very tired as she had had to open 47 gates between Mount Magnet and Meekatharra.” ( reference)

Not even Marion Jnr catching Malaria during the trip would stop Bell. Her daughter was said to have ‘fever for four days’ on the road to Darwin and both were without water for two and a half days. (reference) One story says they survived on muddy water from the radiator until rescued by a teamster and his 45 donkeys, who supplied much needed water. (reference) Another story says they caught water in a tarpaulin from a ‘timely‘ shower- the ‘first to fall for twelve months’. (reference)

Bell’s stories do seem to grow more colourful with each telling. The Melbourne Age- under the title ‘Woman’s Long Motor Journey- thrilling story of Privation’ wrote that not only was she attacked by a pack of dingoes, but she came across a ‘young man overcome with hunger and thirst’. Bell apparently gave him water from the radiator, but he died not long afterwards. (reference)

Finally in Melbourne in February, Marion Jnr was so sick that Marion was forced to delay the trip for a few days to let her recover. ( reference)

Bell’s relationship with Aboriginal people on the journey was highly questionable. Firstly she was quite prepared to shoot them; when asked at the start of the journey “if she had any fears of hostile natives in the North-West, she said she had not, as she had been reared among the Maoris. Furthermore she had two revolvers and a rifle with her.” (reference)

Bell did not question her right to travel wherever she wanted, and expected and took for granted, that Aboriginal people were there to help or ‘serve’ her. She ignored warnings that the Aboriginal people around Fitzroy Crossing “had been fairly wild and that a policeman had been nearly killed by them a few days earlier” and set out again, before becoming unable to cross the Fitzroy River. Here it was reported, and it could only have come from Bell herself:

“A party of natives approached, and, by friendly gestures, she induced them to come close, and then displayed mirrors and tobacco as intended presents. By signs she conveyed to the natives her desire to get the car across the river. The natives were friendly, and understood the signs sufficiently to render the desired assistance.

Soon after the Manager from Louisa Downs Station also sent word that he was sending ‘his station natives’ to assist her car across the river on his property. (reference)

“Even the aborigines in the far north and north west did all they could for her ‘after their quaint style’. Some from one station had run for miles on several occasions to announce the arrival of the car”. (reference)

The most outlandish of her stories resonated with narcissistic pride, and were indeed lies;

"A tribal war was witnessed at Roy Hill in the north-west of Western Australia. Hundreds of naked natives were hurling spears and boomerangs at one another." In spite of the fact that she had been warned by a station manager not to venture near the savages, she drove her car among them. Immediately the fight stopped and the blacks crowded round. So pleased were they with the offerings of sweets and beads that they regained their good humor and even gave her some of their weapons as souvenirs. (reference)

This story in particular was refuted by Mr Gus Smith of Ethel Creek Station, who later claimed publicly in the Sunday Times, that Mrs Bell was having dinner at the station when a telephone message was received from Roy Hill Station saying there was a tribal quarrel between two station boys, which was all she knew of the affair. He wanted it known that all the natives there were ‘civilised and earned, bought and wore white men’s clothes’- protesting that such reports were detrimental to the North-west. (reference)

When she returned to Perth, the Sunday Times was still ambivalent about her reports- grumbling: “Much as we have taken exception to certain reported highly embellished statements made by Mrs. Marion Bell about conditions in the Nor' West and Northern Territory” we give her every credit for her accomplishment”. It might have helped that Oldsmobile ran a huge advertisement in their paper on 11 April 1926, celebrating her feat. (reference)

Bell arrived back in Perth on 7 April 1926, accompanied by a cavalcade of vehicles. Many national newspapers that had followed Marion’s story commented on the surprising silence that greeted her from civic authorities, on her return to Perth:

“Starting as she did from Perth, and returning as she did to that city, it might have been expected of the civic, as well as the automobile authorities, that they would have arranged some kind of a reception in her honor. Strange to say, however, nothing of the kind has been done. The public assembled in thousands to receive the traveller as she entered Forrest-place after her long and arduous trip, but neither the Perth City Council nor the Automobile Association of Western Australia made any official move in recognition of her prowess.“ (reference)

Bell was ordered to have a weeks rest at the end of her trip ( reference) and then she returned to work at the Taxi business. A sailor who attacked her in 1927 did not realise who he was taking on:

WOMAN ASSAULTED. While walking in Market-street shortly before 1 o'clock yesterday morning, Mrs. Marion Bell was attacked by a man, who seized her by the throat and made off when she screamed. In the Fremantle Police Court yesterday morning Joseph Olsen, boatswain from the steamer Persic, was charged with having assaulted Mrs. Bell, and was sentenced to one month's imprisonment by the Resident Magistrate (Mr. H. J. Craig). Mrs. Marion Bell told the Court that she left her office at 12.43 a.m., and was walking along Market-street when she heard a man coming in the same direction from behind. She took refuge in a shop doorway and the man passed her. He turned round, and came back to where she was standing, and, putting one arm round her neck, seized her by the throat. A heavy coat, with a high collar, saved her from injury. She screamed and the man made off, but returned later and walked along Market-street, peering in the doorways. Witness, who had moved to the front of the post office, slipped into a telephone box, and the man could not find her. Her husband and another man appeared, and her assailant was pursued in a motor car, captured in Leake-street, and taken to the Fremantle police station. Thomas Henry Bell, the husband of the first witness, said that shortly after 1 a.m. Mrs. Bell ran out from the post office and told him that a man had grabbed her by the throat. He followed the man and captured him in Leake-street. The accused denied that he was the man who had assaulted Mrs. Bell, and said that he was just walking about the town at the time of the assault. (reference)

From 1924-1928 Thomas and Marion Bell lived at 214 High St, Fremantle. In 1929-1934 Mrs Marion Bell lived at 130 Queen Victoria St, Fremantle.

Fremantle Taxis had been operating in Fremantle since the early 1920s, where owner Joseph Weir had a fleet of six Hudson taxis. In 1929 the Bell’s took over Weirs business at the Elder Place Garage:

1929 SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT. TAXI DE LUXE MARION BELL, Around Australia Motorist HAS TAKEN OVER THE Fremantle Taxi Service Weir's Garage. Opp. Railway Station and Tram Terminus. She has added to the Service her FLEET OF SEDANS known as the Fremantle "De Luxe" Sedan Taxis for Hire Day and Night. Weddings. Picnic Parties. Mail Boats Met. Cars leave for Races and Trots Every Saturday, 1.5 p.m. and 6.30 p.m. Also we have charge of the FREMANTLE CITIZEN'S AMBULANCE PHONE FM 603 ( reference)

The motor ambulance had come to be housed at the Garage in June 1923 when Fremantle’s horse drawn ambulance was withdrawn. (reference) Both Marion and Thomas drove the ambulance:

August 1929 Mr. Thomas Bell, at whose garage the Fremantle Citizens' Ambulance is housed, reported to the Fremantle C.I.D. last night that he had received several 'dud' calls for the ambulance by telephone during the day. His ambulance had proceeded to the locality mentioned by the callers only to find that it was a hoax. (reference)

In 1949 Mabel Marion Bell was living at 41 Broome St, Cottesloe. In 1963 at 31 Bruce St, Nedlands and in 1980 at 30 Bay Road, Claremont.

Mabel Marion Bell died 3 December 1982, aged 91, her ashes were scattered at Karrakatta cemetery.

Marion Bell’s son Cedric Cecil Bell became a leading Fremantle fast bowler, competing in A Grade cricket games from 1934 until 1939. (reference) ( reference) During the War Cedric served with the Air Force and in 1944 married Iris M Poulton. After the war Cedric continued to work as a taxi driver and in 1942 was involved in a freak accident involving a milk cart horse. (reference) Cedric Bell died in 2008.

References:

Stephen Gard: who states many’ highlights’ of the trip, are probably sheer fantasy. (reference)

Steve Grant, MIRACULOUS MARION, March 25, 2021, Fremantle Herald

Georgine Clarsen, ‘Tracing the Outline of a Nation: Circling Australia by Car’, Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 13, no. 3 (1999)

Written by Jo Darbyshire, Aug 2021