Who invented the phrase "bloody hell"?

British in origin - now firmly owned by the Aussies. An expression of surprise, disgust, anger, amusement amoung some. Non-Brits and non-Aussies should be banned from ever uttering this word as it's usually over-used and mangled.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bloody+hell

The origin of "bloody" as a vulgar intensifier is simply unknown. Theories include it dating to Queen Mary I, Bloody Mary, and abbreviating, "by the lady" with an ironic ferver. It's probably nothing so deep. A "bloody mess" might possibly have been used literally and often and having such a picturesque appeal that it broadened figuratively.

Webster's and the Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins offers some substantiation for these points.

The contentious word `bloody' traces its origin to 1690s England, where it meant ``in the manner of a blood,' an aristocrat of the day, said Susan Butler, publisher of Australia's Macquarie Dictionary.

``Bloody drunk was the equivalent of saying they were as drunk as a lord,' Butler said in an interview today. ``It wasn't really a candidate for being a taboo word in the same way that F and C words are,' she said.

Having crept into the vocabulary of the British working class, the term arrived in Australia with the first shipment of convicts in 1788, and is now used in common Australian vernacular as an ``intensifier,' to add emphasis.

[Originally from a bloomberg.com article, no longer online]