Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hall, Robert (1817-1882)
HALL, ROBERT (1817–1882), vice-admiral, was born at Kingston in Upper Canada in 1817, and entered the navy in 1833. In November 1843 he was made lieutenant, and, after serving in the Pacific and on the west coast of Africa, was promoted to be commander on 6 Sept. 1852. In 1853 he served as commander of the Agamemnon, one of the earliest of the screw line-of-battle ships; in 1854 he commanded the paddle sloop Stromboli in the Baltic, going out in her, at the end of the season, to the Mediterranean and Black Sea; in May and June 1855 he took part in the expedition to Kertch and the Sea of Azof, under the command of Captain Lyons [q. v.], and on Lyons's death was promoted to be captain of the Miranda, which he brought home and paid off in 1857. From 1859 to 1863 he commanded the Termagant in the Pacific, and on his return to England was appointed private secretary to the Duke of Somerset, then first lord of the admiralty. In 1866 he was appointed superintendent of Pembroke dockyard, and in 1872 became naval secretary to the admiralty. This appointment he held till the spring of 1882, when he resigned; but a few weeks afterwards, his successor being sent to Ireland as under-secretary, Hall was requested to resume his old post. He had barely done so when he died suddenly of heart disease, on 11 June 1882.
[Times, 14 June 1882; O'Byrne's Nav. Biog. Dict.; Navy Lists.]