Born, "At Sea".
Enlisted at Uxbridge on the 23rd of May 1851.
Age: 18.
Height: 5' 7".
Trade: None.
Volunteered into the 7th Hussars at Aldershot on the 1st of August 1857. Regimental No. 80.
From Private to Corporal: 6th of August 1857.
Embarked for India aboard the "Lightning" on the 27th of August and dis-embarking at Calcutta on the 30th of November 1857.
On service "In the field" from the 3rd of February 1858.
Corporal to Sergeant: 8th of May 1858.
Died at Cawnpore, India, on the 18th of June 1858.
Entitled to the Crimean medal with clasps for Alma, Balaclava, Inkerman and Sebastopol.
Mutiny medal with clasp for Lucknow.
Served in the field in Oude, East Indies, from the 4th of February 1858 to the 14th of May 1858 and including the siege of Lucknow, 2-16 of March 1858.
His Mutiny medal with clasp for "Lucknow" and named to "Corpl. Jas. H. Bell. 7th Husrs." appeared in a Glendining's auction on the 24th of March 1993.
The "write-up", in giving the date of his death, also implied that he had possibly died-of-wounds in the action of the 13th of June 1858 in which two squadrons only of the regiment took part. If this was meant to be the action at Nawabguni, only one man is shown on the medal roll as dying of wounds on the 13th of June 1858.
He is more likely to have been amongst the thirty-three who died from sunstroke (or heat exhaustion) and 250 more had to be evacuated to hospital from the same cause. Many of the men "fell asleep in their tents and never awoke..." (This medal was known to be in an English collection in 1993.)