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Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 104, 4 May 1935, Page 25

Sir Thomas Bell, who has supervised the building of some of the most famous ships ' afloat —his greatest triumph. being the Queen Mary—retired from business at the. end of last month.'

Sir Thomas,-who is almost 70, was the managing director of Clydebank's Admiralty shipyard." His life interests have been, shipbuilding and gardening. ■■~:■

Now that he has finished with ships his. time is spent in his - garden at a new home he has built at Helensburgh.

It commands a perfect view of the Firth "of Clyde, and he will see from his garden ships passing up and. down the river, and the Queen Mary, on the day, a year from now, when she sails down the river under her own power, will pass near, to the home of the man who was responsible for her construction..,^ :.;:■'' ■'. ■ ' ' '

For 26 years Sir Thomas Bell has been in supreme control in Clydebank. Virtually he has been the first commander of all the ships he. has built. Some of his triumphs are: H.M.S. Hood, Britain's' mightiest battleship; the Empress of Britain, a super-luxury liner; the Duchess of York;. the Aquitania, and latest and greatest, the Queen Mary.

Probably the greatest day in the eventful career of the shipbuilder was whep he stood with the King, the Queen, and the Prince of Wales on September 26 last'year and watched the great ship gliding into the river.

It was he.who .had arranged the perfect launch, and .people of Clydebank say that no one worked harder to get the ship started than the chief of the yard. . ;.■•'"' Sir Thomas is a great-grandson of Henry Bell, who designed the Comet, the pioneer of steamships. = He was educated at King's College ■School, and the Royal Naval Engineering College, Devonport. s : Dr. Arthur Hinsley. i The appointment of the IVlqsfes.Rey'. Arthur Hinsley :to succeed >the^%ate Cardinal Bourne as : Archbishop at Westminster brings to London a relate of very • different character, tern-, perament, and outlook from that of his predecessor. ..'■': \ Unlike Dr. Bourne, who was constitutionally shy.; and reserved,^ the new Archibishop is a man of genial disposition^ a little impetuous at times —and possessed of a dynamic personality, which is combined with a deepseated asceticism. ■ Though Dr. Hinsley is 69 years of age, he is full of vigour, with a strong, warm voice—^a- great asset' in the impassioned oratory of -which he is a master. His absorbing interest is in secondary education, of which he was a pioneer in. the North of England to such an extent that some of his coreligionists feared that his zeal was damaging to the Roman • Catholic boarding schools. As rector of the English College in Rome, a post "he held from 1917 to 1930, Monsignor Hinsley was tbe "agent for all the English Roman Catholic diocesan bishops, except Cardinal Bourne. He thus knows their "minds in a way that should. enable him' to knit the hierarchy much closer together. . . ' Add to this the fact that he is. ackn,owiedged to possess unusual' gifts of leadership and diplomacy; and "it is evident that all concerned in England can look forward to a great pro^ gressive movement, especially as he is that by no means common-phenomenon —a leader who is amenable to suggestion.'. ;.■ ' '■', '"..':. • " '.' ' \' : His great work was accomplished as Apostolic Delegate in Africa, an :appointment which excited 'not a' little misgiving among the French missions in such places as Madagascar, French Equatorial Africa, and French West Africa. "He succeeded in "dispelling the unfavourable impression which his' appointment caused very largely by the way in which he negotiated; with the Government over, the school- question. ■;•■... : He successfully put the point • of view of the' missions;that:while they might not impart quite so much actual instruction to the natives as the Government policy .required, they., .gave more real education. He gained his point to the extent of procuring exemption from the higher costs, that would otherwise have fallen on the mission schools^ . . i ■Dr. Hinsley's delegacy in .Africa lasted four. years,' and on .his return it was confidently predicted -that he .would be elevated to the Cardirialate. Instead he was made a canon at St. Peter's; a post that is usually regarded as relegation. Monsignor Hinsley was. born in Selby, Yorkshire, and was educated at Ushaw and took the B.A: degree of London University in 1889. . While at the English ■ College at Rome he took a brilliant doctorate at the Gregorian University: From J899 to 1904 he was headmaster of St. Bede's Grammar School, , Bradford, and for the next thirteen years, was an exceedingly popular and successful parish priest at Sutton Park and Sydenham. "

During his thirteen years as rector of the English College, Rome, he was appointed successively domestic prelate to the Pope, titular Bishop of Sebastopolis, titular ■ Archbishop of Sardes, and Apostolic Visitor to' African Missions in British Territory. He left the college in 1930 to'fulfil His arduous task of Apostolic Delegate in Africa. , . ' ■