Sir Francis Dillon Bell KCMG CB (8 October 1822 – 15 July 1898) was a New Zealand politician of the late 19th century.

When his family ran into financial problems, his father's cousin, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, managed to secure Bell a position as a clerk in the New Zealand Company's head office in London.

As a result of office politics, however, it eventually became expedient for Bell to go to New Zealand in person, acting as an agent for the company.

Passing through Wellington on his way to take up the post, however, Bell found the company's director in New Zealand, William Wakefield, to be in ill health.

When the Legislative Council was reformed, becoming merely the upper house of the new General Assembly (now called Parliament), Bell's appointment was reconfirmed.

He joined the Wellington Provincial Council for the Wairarapa and Hawkes Bay electorate and served from November 1853 to February 1856.

Bell was not particularly active in his Native Affairs role, however, as he believed that the Governor – not Parliament – should have primary responsibility for Māori relations.

Although Bell initially intended to contest the 1875 election, he later decided to withdraw, expecting an appointment to the Legislative Council.

In late 1879 Bell, a pastoralist who by then had amassed a holding of 226,000 acres (910 km2), joined Fox as the other member of the West Coast Commission to inquire into Māori grievances with confiscated lands in Taranaki.

The commission's hearings, which had been prompted by friction between the Government and Te Whiti over plans to survey and sell previously confiscated land in central and south Taranaki, were closely connected with events at Parihaka, a settlement that became the centre of a passive resistance campaign against European encroachment on Māori land.

As Agent-General in London he was New Zealand's senior representative at the World's Fair and exhibition at Paris in 1889 which showcased our agricultural and natural resources.

For his role at the exhibition, Sir Francis Dillon Bell was decorated with the Commandeur of the Légion d'honneur by the French Government in November 1889.