After a dispute with the authorities about his status and pay, a dispute in which he was supported by Lieutenant-Colonel F. J. Fox, Bell resigned from his engineering positions in New Zealand and accepted a position in West Australia. Bell's appointment came about through the suggestion and support of
C. Y. O'Connor, a prominent engineer in New Zealand at that time. O'Connor was born and trained in Ireland, and migrated to New Zealand as a young man where he worked first as a surveyor. At the early age of 29 he became district engineer for
Canterbury Province and eight years later he took up the position of inspecting engineer for the
South Island. By the time Bell moved to West Australia, O'Connor and he had worked together for some ten years and the two became friends. By 1891 O'Connor, like Bell, had become dissatisfied with his treatment by his superiors and accepted the position of Chief Engineer in West Australia, offered by
John Forrest, the
Premier. The
Australian Dictionary of Biography describes Forrest and O'Connor thus: "Both were big men, O'Connor, lithe and athletic; at over , he was slightly the taller. Both had known the toughening experience of surveyors working in unexplored places. O'Connor was the more sensitive, with wide and cultivated tastes and a passionate sense of justice for men of all degree." of whom Bell must have been one. The plan for supplying the goldfields with water involved creating a reservoir west of the
Darling Range by damming the
Helena River, a short distance inland from Perth. This was to be the
Mundaring Weir. The water had to be lifted over the escarpment east of the reservoir, and pumped some across the inland plateau into a reservoir at Coolgardie. It was to take three years and cost 2.5 million pounds (over 5.5 billion in today's values). To do this Forrest had to convince parliament of the feasibility of the plan and of the necessity of raising an enormous loan in London. By 1898 the first contracts, for piping, were going through. Bell took up the positions of inspecting engineer and chief assistant to O'Connor, there being no Assistant Engineer-in-Chief position at that time, a position he held from May 1893 until December 1896. A eulogy about him published in
The Morning Herald on his retirement and imminent return to New Zealand stated that he was "... practically assistant engineer-in-chief through the exceptionally busy period in this state from 1894 to 1897, when the West was beginning to feel the full force of the boom consequent upon the rich gold discoveries." After surveying in the goldfields he was involved in special constructions for them such as roads, railways and bridges. He worked also on the
harbour in
Fremantle, and then in the works at the Mundaring Weir. He also, as in New Zealand, held the office of superintendent of public buildings, from 1897 to 1902. After controversy attached to the Coolgardie plan, Forrest resigned in 1901 to join the new Federal parliament. There followed a series of unstable governments in West Australia and O'Connor encountered criticism from the parliament and the press. The eulogy to O'Connor in the
Herald described the end of these events: O'Connor's confidence in his scheme was vindicated on 8 March 1902 by a successful preliminary pumping test of of the water main over the most difficult part of the route. That evening one small leak was discovered near Chidlow's Well. He arranged to accompany the engineer in charge of construction to the site on Monday. That morning, 10 March 1902, he prepared for his customary early ride but his usual companion, his youngest daughter, was unwell. He rode alone along the Fremantle beach past the new harbour, then south to Robb Jetty, where he rode his horse into the sea. His deft revolver shot ended his life. He had left a note: 'The Coolgardie Scheme is alright and I could finish it if I got a chance and protection from misrepresentation but there is no hope of that now and it is better that it should be given to some entirely new man to do who will be untrammelled by prior responsibility'. By the end of 1902 the work was successfully completed. After the death of O'Connor the Public Works Department was reorganised and Bell was moved to the office of principal engineer for harbours and rivers, "... in which capacity he... controlled a number of very important marine engineering undertakings along the extensive seaboard of the State." These were the completion of works at Fremantle Harbour, including extending the quays, installing the shed and cranes, designing a graving dock, and preparing for future expansion. Bell also worked on land reclamations on the sea front and the building of a swing bridge to
North Fremantle; and the reclamation of the
Swan River foreshore at Perth. He also designed and supervised works on harbours at
Bunbury and
Albany and along the north west coast, and designed and constructed all the lighthouses on the coast. In 1901 he had been in addition made acting engineer for railway construction. The family returned to New Zealand later that year and settled in
Auckland, in Arney Road. ==Family and death==