Philip Bell

Philip Bell (19 June 1590 – 3 March 1678) was Governor of Bermuda from 1626 to 1629, of the Providence Island colony from 1629 to 1636, and of Barbados from 1640 to 1650 during the English Civil War. During his terms of office in Providence and Barbados, the colonies moved from using indentured English workers to slaves imported from West Africa. The Providence Island colony, despite its puritan ideals, became a haven for privateers attacking ships in the Spanish Main. Early years Philip Bell came from the family of Sir Robert Bell, a prominent politician under Queen Elizabeth I of England who died in 1577. Karen Ordahl Kupperman, author of a carefully researched book on the Providence Island colony, of which he was the first governor, says he was son of Sir Robert's sixth child, Sir Edmund Bell (1562–1608). If so, he was born on 19 June 1590, either in South Acre, Norfolk or in Beaupré Hall, Outwell, Norfolk. His mother was Anne Osborne, daughter of Sir Peter Osbourne, the Treasurer's Remembrancer in the Exchequer. Several of his siblings became involved with the Virginia colony. Bermuda