Walter Andrew Bell was born on the fourth of January, 1889, in St. Thomas, Ontario. After specialising in Geological Engineering at Queen's University, he went on to study geology at Yale University in 1911.

Bell's scientific pursuits were interrupted by World War I. From 1916 to 1919, he served with the Canadian Field Artillery and fought at Ypres, Vimy and Arras. After the war, he remained in England for several months to examine British fossils on his own before returning to his studies. In 1920, Bell received his PhD with distinction from Yale.

He immediately embarked upon a 34-year career with the Geological Survey of Canada. In the years separating the two world wars, most of the field work in Nova Scotia was done by Bell and E. R. Faribault. Aided by the work of Hugh Fletcher, he unravelled the structure, stratigraphy and palaeontology of the Lower Carboniferous Horton and Windsor groups of Nova Scotia. Unwittingly, he laid the cornerstore for the modern plate-tectonic framework of Maritime Canada, as most of the fossil plants he identified are well-known European species. Contrary to this work, Bell was not a believer of continental drift!

Walter Andrew Bell died in 1969 and was buried at Alma, Pictou County, Nova Scotia, on top of the Carboniferous strata that he spent his life studying.