Peter Albany Bell

Peter Albany Bell (20 April 1871 – 14 September 1957) was a caterer and confectioner in Western Australia. He was a significant manufacturer in the state's developing economy.

Early life Peter Albany Bell was born near Clare, South Australia on 20 April 1871, to farmer Peter Bell and wife Jane . Bell's education was almost entirely informal. In 1887, after his father died, he moved with his mother to Western Australia. Bell worked as a draper's delivery boy, then an inland stockman, and later a shop assistant, before opening his own confectionery shop in 1894.

Amid increased competition after the federation of Australia, Bell began making cakes and pastries, and his confectionery shops became tea rooms. His company, Albany Bell Ltd, was started in October 1911, and eventually operated eleven tea rooms in Perth, three more in the Kalgoorlie-Boulder area, and a manufacturing factory, Albany Bell Castle, in Mount Lawley.

Family Bell married Edith Agnes, née Clark, on 11 March 1896 in Adelaide, South Australia. They had nine children together.

M. Tamblyn, writing for the Australian Dictionary of Biography in 1975, considers Bell to be a significant figure due to his being a "manufacturer in the early years of the century when Western Australia lagged behind the other States in developing urban industries".