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.

William Losh (1770 Carlisle–4 August 1861, Ellison Place, Newcastle) came from a rich family that owned coal mines in Northeast England.

[2] He was a friend of the explorer Alexander von Humboldt and a one-time business partner of rail pioneer George Stephenson.

[6] The firm's origins can be traced back to 1790 when Archibald Dundonald, with John and William Losh, experimented on producing soda from salt.

Dundonald sent William Losh to Paris to study Nicolas Leblanc's process for making soda from salt.

The journal called William Losh "the father of soda-making on the Tyne" and described him as the head of the firm (although it was a partnership).

[15] In 1842, the shortage of pig iron persuaded Bell to install its own blast furnace for smelting mill cinder; this was a key decision, enabling the firm to expand.

The business at that time was described in the London Gazette as "Iron Manufacturers, and Ship and Insurance Brokers, under the style or firm of Losh, Wilson, and Bell".

According to a contemporary account, the boiler "unfurled like a sail, was blown upwards, carrying with it two roofings of the sheds, and blowing down two furnaces, with their chimneys, and scattering the molten metal and red hot bricks around, while one end of it was hurled into the midst of the works, and the other about 200 yards over the hill top, into the lumber-yard".

[23] On 30 November 1876, Thomas Bell Lightfoot, Managing Partner, was granted a patent for his developments on machines for squeezing metals into shape.

[26] The 1881–1891 Arts and Crafts classical style Bell Brothers office building at Zetland Road in Middlesbrough was designed by architect Philip Webb; it was his only commercial development.

Bell Brothers, along with the plate maker Consett Iron Company and another family ironmaking firm of Northeast England, Bolckow Vaughan,[29] had expanded their capacity during World War I and the boom that immediately followed.

[26] That same year, Bell Brothers, described in The Sydney Morning Herald as "owners of coal and ironstone mines and blast furnaces and rolling mills", was finally merged completely with Dorman Long.

[32]: 25 In sport, an iron puddler, Robert Chambers of the company's Walker works, won the sculling championship at the 1857 Thames Regatta.

Chambers also won the return match, held on the Tyne on 19 April 1859, even after a collision with a moored boat left him a hundred yards behind.