Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 24.djvu/75

 , but he deemed that he had been unjustly treated by the law courts, and resolved to die in prison. He died in the Fleet, aged about 80. His friend, John Minter Morgan, reprinted Hall's 'Effects' in his 'Phoenix Library' (London, 1849). In his 'Hampden in the 19th Century,' 1834, i. 20-1, Morgan described Hall as a man of classical and scientific attainments. Approving mention is made of Hall's arguments in Charles Bray's 'Philosophy of Necessity,' 1841, ii. 657, App., and in Mary Hennell's ' Outlines of Social Systems,' 1841, p. 240.

 HALL, CHARLES (1814–1883), vice-chancellor, fourth son of John Hall of Manchester and Mary, daughter of John Dobson of Durham, was born on 14 April 1814. His father, having sustained heavy losses by a bank failure, did not give him a university education, but articled him to a solicitor in Manchester. In 1835 he entered the Middle Temple, and read for the bar successively with William Taprell, special pleader, James Russell of the chancery bar, and the conveyancer [q. v.] At the expiration of his year as a pupil he became Duval's principal assistant, and by extraordinary industry contrived to earn from him 700l. or 800l. a year, though receiving the unusually low proportion of one-fourth of the fees received by Duval. In 1837 he married Sarah, daughter of Francis Duval of Exeter and Lewis Duval's niece. Eventually Hall succeeded to the bulk of Duval's practice, and through his wife to the bulk of his fortune, and resided till his death in Duval's house, 8 Bayswater Hill, once the residence of Peter the Great when in London. During the next twenty years he became the recognised leader of the junior chancery bar, and the first authority of his day upon real property law. Having been called to the bar in Michaelmas term 1838, he gradually obtained a large court practice. His pupil room was always crowded, and from it came the foremost of the succeeding generation of equity lawyers. His best known cases were the Bridgewater peerage case in the House of Lords in 1853, the Shrewsbury peerage case, and Allgood v. Blake in the exchequer chamber in 1872, of his argument in which the lord chief baron said that it was the most perfect he had ever listened to. He drew several bills for Lord Westbury, including his Registration of Titles Act, and assisted Lord Selborne in drafting the Judicature Act of 1873. Twice Lord Westbury offered him a silk gown; but being without a rival at the chancery bar, and earning 10,000l. a year, he refused it. In 1862 he became under-conveyancer and in 1864 conveyancer to the court of chancery, and in 1872 a bencher of his inn. He was raised to the bench in succession to Vice-chancellor Wickens in November 1873 and knighted. Here he distinguished himself by an industry which eventually impaired his constitution. While walking home from his court he was attacked by a stroke of paralysis in June 1882. He resigned his judgeship before the ensuing Michaelmas sittings, and died on 12 Dec. 1883. He was fond of art and letters, but never played any part in politics. He had four sons, two of whom survived him—the younger, Charles, is a queen's counsel and attorney-general to the Prince of Wales, and M.P. for the Western Division of Cambridgeshire and four daughters.

 HALL, CHARLES HENRY (1763–1827), dean of Durham, born in 1763, was the son of Charles Hall, dean of Booking, Essex. He was admitted on the foundation at Westminster in 1775, was elected thence to Christ Church, Oxford, and matriculated on 3 June 1779 (, Alumni Oxon. 1715-1886, ii. 587). In 1781 he won the chancellor's prize for Latin verse on 'Strages Indica Occidentalis,' and in 1784 the English essay on 'The Use of Medals.' He graduated B.A. in 1783, M.A. in 1786, B.D. in 1794, and D.D. in 1800. From 1792 to 1797 he was tutor and censor of Christ Church. In 1793 he served the office of junior proctor; was presented by his college to the vicarage of Broughton-in-Aredale, Yorkshire, in 1794; and was appointed Bampton lecturer and prebendary of Exeter in 1798. He became rector of Kirk Bramwith, Yorkshire, in June 1799, and prebendary of the second stall in Christ Church Cathedral on 30 Nov. of that year. In 1805 he was made sub-dean of Christ Church, and in 1807 vicar of Luton, Bedfordshire, a preferment which he held until his death. In February 1807 he was elected regius professor of divinity, and removed to the fifth stall in Christ Church, but resigned both offices in October 1809, on being nominated dean of Christ Church. He was prolocutor of the lower house of convocation in 1812. On 26 Feb. 1824 he was installed dean of Durham. He died at Edinburgh on