Architecture

Bell was born to Peter Joseph Meugens (1808 – 1886) and Elizabeth Caroling Bennet (1807 – 1845). Peter Joseph had been born in Antwerp and became a naturalised British subject. He variously gave his occupation on census returns and birth registration forms as colonial broker or merchant. Bell's mother died before she was a year old, and her father quickly remarried to Emily Wallis (1821 – 1883) before Bell was two years old.

Bell was living with her father and stepmother in Wandsworth at the time of the 1871 census. She was already writing translations, with her first major work published in 1873. By 3 April 1881 (census night) Bell was boarding at 61 Elsham Road, Kensington, London, and described herself as an authoress and teacher on the census return.