Centre – Westminster Society annual reunion service features Donald Bell, VC

The annual reunion of the Westminster Society in September 2016 concluded with the usual service in the chapel at Harcourt Hill. This year’s event was made special by inclusion of a commemoration of the award of the Victoria Cross to Donald Simpson Bell, who attended Westminster College in London between 1909 and 1911. When he left Westminster he became a teacher near Leeds and then a professional football player for Bradford Park F.C. He enlisted in Alexandra Princess of Wales’s Yorkshire Regiment (later the Green Howards) and fought in the Great War. He won the VC. in a heroic action at Contalmaison on the Somme in July 1916 but died in a similarly heroic action five days later.

Attending the reunion service were representatives of the Professional Football Association, as well as members of the Yorkshire Regiment, the Green Howards, and the local OTC.