On leaving Oxford University in 1888, Gertrude Bell visited Persia and fell in love with it. She became passionate about travelling and was soon mountaineering in Europe, visiting friends in Jerusalem and taking part in archaeological excavations in the Middle East. In 1907, she published her first book about Syria. Despite her love of adventure, she was politically conservative, and back in England joined the Anti Suffrage League.
During the First World War because of her knowledge of the Middle East she was sent there as a part of British Intelligence, becoming Oriental Secretary to the High Commission in Basra. In 1921 she was invited by Winston Churchill to attend a conference in Cairo, where she was invited to draw up the boundaries for the new country of Iraq. She later became director of the archaeological museum in Baghdad. Her death in 1929 was probably through suicide.
