William Robert Bell (7 August 1876 – 4 October 1927) was an Australian-born official in the British Solomon Islands Protectorate, who served as the District Officer of Malaita from 1915 until 1927.
[1] Bell was born in Maffra district of Gippsland region of Victoria, Australia, the third son of a migrant from Whaddon (Cambridgeshire) in a family with fifteen children.
Afterwards, he found work as a Government Agent aboard the schooner Clansman, which was involved in the labour trade bringing Solomon Islanders to Fiji.
Bell was reinstated, and Barnett left soon afterward, and the new Resident Commissioner Charles Rufus Marshall Workman was much more supportive of his work and recommended he be confirmed as District Officer.
Though most of the mountainous interior and the eastern coast remained defiant, he was increasingly viewed as having the characteristics of a Malaitan strongman, and an aura of supernatural power.
[11] Later, in his dealings with the adversaries, Bell became increasingly overbearing and aggressive, and was prone to intimidation and, when he lost his temper, violence to establish personal dominance.
[12] He replaced most of his constabulary, previously largely from the Western Solomons or even Tanna, with Malaitans familiar with local custom and more likely to be taken seriously by strongmen, but who were strongly loyal to him and devoted to duty.
In that year, he found a great deal of resentment about the tax, exacerbated from a speech the Resident Commissioner R. R. Kane had made in his absence, extolling the benefits that government had brought.
In truth, Malaitans had little to show in government expenditures, and Bell pressed the protectorate authorities to provide a Medical Officer and other return for the tax money.
[27] On Monday 3 October 1927 Bell moored his ship the Auki in Singalagu harbour, and set up the usual tax collection operation at the house in the glen nearby.