Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, 1st Baronet, FRS (18 February 1816 – 20 December 1904) was a Victorian ironmaster and Liberal Party politician from Washington, County Durham, in the north of England. He was described as being "as famous in his day as Isambard Kingdom Brunel". Bell was an energetic and skilful entrepreneur as well as an innovative metallurgist. He was involved in multiple partnerships with his brothers to make iron and alkali chemicals, and with other pioneers including Robert Stirling Newall to make steel cables. He pioneered the large-scale manufacture of aluminium at his Washington works, conducting experiments in its production, and in the production of other chemicals such as the newly discovered element thallium. He was a director of major companies including the North Eastern Railway and the Forth Bridge company, then the largest bridge project in the world. He was a wealthy patron of the arts, commissioning the architect Philip Webb, the designer William Morris and the painter Edward Burne-Jones on his Yorkshire mansions Rounton Grange and Mount Grace Priory. Early life Bell was the son of Thomas Bell, one of the founders of the iron and alkali company Losh, Wilson and Bell, and his wife Katherine Lowthian. He was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and educated at Dr Bruce's academy in Percy Street, Newcastle, followed by studying physical science at Edinburgh University and the Sorbonne University, Paris. He gained experience in manufacturing alkalis at Marseilles before returning to Newcastle in 1836 to work in his father's Walker iron and chemical works. Industry Bell's industrial life was complex: involvement in up to three different partnerships at the same time created a conflict of loyalties, causing allegiances to each to vary over the years. Inspired to become an entrepreneur he took over the Walker ironworks on his father's death in 1845. In 1850 at Washington, County Durham, Bell made a breakthrough discovering a new process for manufacturing lead oxychloride. His partners and co-founders of the Washington chemical company, named after his home, were his brother-in-law Robert Benson Bowman and his father-in-law Hugh Lee Pattinson. Pattinson was the inventor responsible for the process separating silver from lead that bears his name. Under an 1850 Indenture, Charles Vane, 3rd Marquess of Londonderry, Pattinson and Bell declared themselves "chemical manufacturers and co-partners in trade". Bell decided the partnership might be incompatible with his continued involvement in the running of Losh, Wilson and Bell. In