Michael Charles Farrar Bell, later Farrar-Bell (1911–1993) was a British

stained glass Stained glass refers to coloured glass as a material or art and architectural works created from it. Although it is traditionally made in flat panels and used as windows, the creations of modern stained glass artists also include three-dimensio ...

and

postage stamp A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail). Then the stamp is affixed to the f ...

designer A designer is a person who plans the form or structure of something before it is made, by preparing drawings or plans. In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, products, processes, laws, games, graphics, services, or exper ...

. Bell designed pub signs, then became known as a stained glass designer as the head of Clayton and Bell, which had been one of the most prolific workshops of English stained glass during the latter half of the 19th century. Bell's postage stamp designs included the 1s/6d value of the British

Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II The Coronation of the British monarch, coronation of Elizabeth II as queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms took place on 2 June 1953 at Westminster Abbey in London. Elizabeth acceded to the throne at the age of 25 upon th ...

1953 stamp issue, the frame around the image of the Queen on two values of the Wilding series

definitive stamp A definitive stamp is a postage stamp that is part of the regular issue of a country's stamps, available for sale by the post office for an extended period of time and designed to serve the everyday postal needs of the country. The term is used in ...

issue and the 3d value from the 1965

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commemorative issue. He was an accomplished artist, and a ''British Pathe News'' film of 1956 shows him at work, painting pub-signs.Video of Farrar-Bell producing pub signs
from ''British Pathe News'' Farrar-Bell worked alongside Deane Skurray, son of Thomas Skurray, chairman of Morland United Breweries, Abingdon. Together they designed a plaque that went in front of every Morland pub and hotel across Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Hampshire, Surrey and London, to commemorate 250 years of brewing. Skurray had the idea of a painter in a red frocked coat tricorn hat, so with this idea Farrar-Bell put pencil to paper and together they came up with the design, which became the new logo of Morland & Co. These ceramic plaques were first made by Carter Tile Works in London and then the Poole pottery company, and still can be seen in more than 350 pubs across the Morland trading area, many in Abingdon, Reading, Oxford, Wantage, Maidenhead, Wokingham, Thame. Farrar-Bell also painted many of Morland's pub signs.

References

1911 births 1993 deaths 20th-century British designers Farrar British stained glass artists and manufacturers Pub sign painters {{UK-artist-stub