William Hall
Nova Scotia Museum 1747 Summer Street
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Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 3A6
William Hall, V C first Black person, the first Nova Scotian and one of the first Canadians to receive the Empire’s highest award for bravery, the Victoria Cross. The son of former American slaves, Hall was born in 1827 at Horton, Nova Scotia, where he also attended school. He grew up during the age of wooden ships, when many boys dreamed of travelling the world in sailing vessels. As a young man, Hall worked in shipyards at Hantsport for several years, building wooden ships for the merchant marine. He then joined the crew of a trading vessel and, before he was eighteen, had visited most of the world’s important ports. Perhaps a search for adventure caused young William Hall to leave a career in the American merchant navy and enlist in the Royal Navy in Liverpool, England, in 1852. His first service, as Able Seaman with HMS Rodney, included two years in the Crimean War. Hall was a member of the naval brigade that landed from the fleet to assist ground forces manning heavy gun batteries,
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illiam Hall was the
and he received British and Turkish medals for his work during this campaign. After the Crimean War, Hall was assigned to the receiving ship HMS Victory at Portsmouth, England. He then joined the crew of HMS Shannon as Captain of the Foretop. It was his service with Shannon that led to the Victoria Cross. Shannon, under Captain William Peel, was escorting troops to China, in readiness for expected conflict there, when mutiny broke out among the sepoys in India. Lord Elgin, former Governor General of Upper Canada and then Envoy Extrodinary to China, was asked to send troops to India. The rebel sepoy army had taken Delhi and Cawnpore, and a small British garrison at Lucknow was under siege. Elgin diverted troops to Calcutta and, as the situation in India worsened, Admiral Seymour also dispatched Shannon, Pearl and Sanspareil from Hong Kong to Calcutta. Captain Peel,
info
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 3A6
William Hall, V C first Black person, the first Nova Scotian and one of the first Canadians to receive the Empire’s highest award for bravery, the Victoria Cross. The son of former American slaves, Hall was born in 1827 at Horton, Nova Scotia, where he also attended school. He grew up during the age of wooden ships, when many boys dreamed of travelling the world in sailing vessels. As a young man, Hall worked in shipyards at Hantsport for several years, building wooden ships for the merchant marine. He then joined the crew of a trading vessel and, before he was eighteen, had visited most of the world’s important ports. Perhaps a search for adventure caused young William Hall to leave a career in the American merchant navy and enlist in the Royal Navy in Liverpool, England, in 1852. His first service, as Able Seaman with HMS Rodney, included two years in the Crimean War. Hall was a member of the naval brigade that landed from the fleet to assist ground forces manning heavy gun batteries,
W
illiam Hall was the
and he received British and Turkish medals for his work during this campaign. After the Crimean War, Hall was assigned to the receiving ship HMS Victory at Portsmouth, England. He then joined the crew of HMS Shannon as Captain of the Foretop. It was his service with Shannon that led to the Victoria Cross. Shannon, under Captain William Peel, was escorting troops to China, in readiness for expected conflict there, when mutiny broke out among the sepoys in India. Lord Elgin, former Governor General of Upper Canada and then Envoy Extrodinary to China, was asked to send troops to India. The rebel sepoy army had taken Delhi and Cawnpore, and a small British garrison at Lucknow was under siege. Elgin diverted troops to Calcutta and, as the situation in India worsened, Admiral Seymour also dispatched Shannon, Pearl and Sanspareil from Hong Kong to Calcutta. Captain Peel,
References: until at last my gun’s crew were actually in danger of being hurt by splinters of brick and stone torn by the Blakeley, Phyllis R., “William Hall, Canada’s First Naval VC”, in The Dalhousie Review (Halifax), vol. XXXVII, no. 3, autumn 1957 round shot from the walls we were bombarding.” Captain Peel recommended William Hall and Clowes, William Laird, The Royal Navy, London, 1903 Thomas Young for the Victoria Cross, in recognition Creagh, O’Moore, The VC and DSO, London, 1924 of their “gallant conduct at a twenty-four-pounder Fergusson, C. Bruce, “William Hall, VC”, in The Journal of Education gun... at Lucknow on the 16th November 1857”. (Halifax), vol. 17, no.2, December 1967 Hall received his Victoria Cross aboard HMS Donegal Pachai, Bridglal, “William Hall”, in The Dictionary of Canadian Biography, in Queenstown Harbour, Ireland, on October 28, 1859. vol. XIII, 1994 (also available online at www.biographi.ca) His naval career continued aboard many ships, among States, David W., “William Hall, VC, of Horton Bluff, Nova Scotia: them Bellerophon, Hero, Impregnable, Petrel and Royal Nineteenth-Century Naval Hero”, in Collections of the Royal Nova Scotia Adelaide, until he retired in 1876 as Quartermaster. Historical Society, vol. 44, 1996 Tourism, Culture and Heritage