Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-

Born in Bensham, Gateshead on 28th February 1865 to John and Isabella Bell, young John became a professional soldier. He spent twelve years as a cavalryman in the 17th (Duke of Cambridge’s Own) Lancers and served in India, and then he joined the 55th Company 14th Battalion Imperial Yeomanry as a Private in 1899 and served in the Boer War for over two years. Returning home to his wife, Mary Ann, in Gateshead, after just a few months he enlisted again and was posted to the 118th Company Imperial Yeomanry as Quartermaster Sergeant where he stayed until March 1902 when he was discharged as medically unfit for military service.

Rather than settle in England John and his family travelled to Canada and settled in William Street, Montreal where he found work as a boilermaker. He enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force on 18th September 1914 in Levis, Quebec and giving the year of his birth as 1875 he was passed as medically fit and became Private 1122 in Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, 95% of whom had seen previous service in the British Army. The PPCLI sailed from Quebec on board the Royal George arriving in England at the beginning of October and a posting at Bustard Camp on Salisbury Plain where they remained until travelling to Southampton in February 1915 to travel across the Channel to France and on into Belgium.

Private John Bell was killed in action on the 5th March 1915, a few days after his 50th birthday, when the PPCLI, relieved the Cheshire Regiment in trenches at St Eloi, near Ypres.

Originally thought to be buried at the Voormezeele Enclosure No. 3 there is only a memorial cross there, and Private 1122 Bell is remembered on the Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres.

John Bell is remembered at Gateshead on G39.004 page 95

In Canada he is remembered on the Canadian Virtual War Memorial and in the Canadian Book of Remembrance.

Canadian book of Remembrance
Canadian Virtual War Memorial
The CWGC entry for Private Bell