Early career

Abell was born in Cork

Cork (city)

Cork is the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland and the island of Ireland's third most populous city. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city in the province of Munster. Cork has a population of 119,418, while the addition of the suburban...

, Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

, into a Quaker family of eleven children. His family had long standing in business. He also was successful in business and noted for his charity. He served as treasurer of the Cork Dispensary and Humane Society

Humane Society

A humane society may be a group that aims to stop human or animal suffering due to cruelty or other reasons, although in many countries, it is now used mostly for societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals...

.

Cultural interests

He had a great interest in archaeology

Archaeology

Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

 and did a study of the Irish Round Tower

Irish round tower

Irish round towers , Cloigthithe – literally "bell house") are early medieval stone towers of a type found mainly in Ireland, with three in Scotland and one on the Isle of Man...

. He was responsible for the first collection of Ogham

Ogham

Ogham is an Early Medieval alphabet used primarily to write the Old Irish language, and occasionally the Brythonic language. Ogham is sometimes called the "Celtic Tree Alphabet", based on a High Medieval Bríatharogam tradition ascribing names of trees to the individual letters.There are roughly...

 stone inscriptions and his collection is now on public display at University College Cork. He had a major collection of books. He was a member of the Royal Cork Institution

Royal Cork Institution

Royal Cork Institution was an Irish cultural institution in the city of Cork from 1803-1885. It consisted of a library of scientific works, a museum with old Irish manuscripts and stones with ogham inscriptions, and lecture and reading rooms. A lack of funds resulted in its closure in...

 and one of the founders in 1835 of the Cuvierian Society

Cuvierian Society

The Cuvierian Society of Cork was founded as a committee of the Royal Cork Institution in October 1835. The meetings were held on the first Wednesday of the Autumn and Winter months in the Library of the Royal Cork Institution. The Society was named after the noted French naturalist and...

. This was the forerunner of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society.

At the time of his death, Abell's personal library contained about 4,500 volumes, including books written in Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

, French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, Latin, German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

, Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

, Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

, Hebrew, and Irish

Irish language

Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...

.