Thomas Bell was born in Parkhead on the east end of Glasgow, Scotland, which was at that time still a semi-rural village.
[1] His father was a stonemason who was frequently unemployed, while his mother came from a family of coal miners and worked at home spinning cotton and silk.
[11] Bell began a seven-year apprenticeship as an iron moulder, but left after nine months to another foundry, where he exaggerated the duration of his previous experience and gained a job on somewhat more favourable terms.
[12] After two years there, he went to another foundry that made gas engines, completing his seven-year apprenticeship and joining the Associated Ironmoulders of Scotland in August 1904.
Generally continuing to work in the metal trades, Bell briefly joined the Singer Company to organise for the Industrial Workers of Great Britain, but was sacked following the failure of a strike in 1911.
He then attended the Third World Congress of the Communist International, visiting Moscow for five months, despite the British Government denying him a visa.