John Gell (Manx language activist)

He spend his childhood summers on the Isle of Man staying with relatives, describing the Island as being "truly heaven on earth to me in my youth".

In 1938 Gell was inspired to learn Manx when he met a Scottish woman at the Empire Exhibition in Glasgow who was shocked that he did not speak the language:[4]Then she said "Shame on thee, you are a Manxman with no Gaelic.

[4] In 1944 Gell moved to Port St. Mary on the Isle of Man with his family and started working in the newly established Castle Rushen High School.

Despite Gell's work in creating new learner material and teaching Manx classes, he still found negative attitudes towards the language to be a major difficulty.

After the sudden death of his wife in 1955,[12] he retreated somewhat from Manx language movement:But at that time there was not much attention given to the Gaelic and we made little progress.