William Bell was a retired Durham miner who published his only book, The Road to Jericho, when he was 94 years old.

Hugh Lowthian Bell was born on 21 October 1878 at the Bell family home, Red Barns, in East Coatham, Yorkshire, England, to Sir Thomas Hugh Bell and Lady Florence Eveleen Eleanor Bell (née Olliffe). He was the youngest brother of Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell, traveller, archaeologist and diplomat, and the grandson of Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, the industrial metallurgist. Hugh, known also as Hugo, attended Trinity College, Oxford, graduating with a Master of Arts (M.A.), and married Frances Helena Morkill on 24 November 1921. The couple had two sons, Sir Hugh Francis Bell, 4th Baronet, and John Lowthian Bell. Hugh Lowthian Bell died on 2 February 1926.

Martin Bell was born in Hampshire in 1918. He was the leading member of the 'lost generation' of English poets whose careers were interrupted by the War. He was a prominent member of The Group during the fifties, and a major influence on younger poets like Peter Redgrove and Peter Porter. His poetry reached a wide audience during the sixties through Penguin Modern Poets, and in 1967 he published his Collected Poems,1937-1966, his first and last book. Bell was also a champion and brilliant translator of French Surrealist poets. He died in poverty in Leeds in 1978.