The Right Honourable The Viscount Hall PC |
|
---|---|
George Henry Hall c. 1945
|
|
First Lord of the Admiralty | |
In office 4 October 1946 – 24 May 1951 |
|
Monarch | George VI |
Prime Minister | Clement Attlee |
Preceded by | A. V. Alexander |
Succeeded by | The Lord Pakenham |
Secretary of State for the Colonies | |
In office 3 August 1945 – 4 October 1946 |
|
Prime Minister | Clement Attlee |
Preceded by | Hon. Oliver Stanley |
Succeeded by | Arthur Creech Jones |
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs | |
In office 25 September 1943 – 26 May 1945 |
|
Prime Minister | Winston Churchill |
Preceded by | Richard Law |
Succeeded by |
Alec Douglas-Home Simon Fraser |
Financial Secretary to the Admiralty | |
In office 4 February 1942 – 25 September 1943 |
|
Prime Minister | Winston Churchill |
Succeeded by | James Thomas |
Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies | |
In office 12 May 1940 – 4 February 1942 |
|
Prime Minister | Winston Churchill |
Preceded by | Basil Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood |
Succeeded by | Harold Macmillan |
Civil Lord of the Admiralty | |
In office 7 June 1929 – 24 August 1931 |
|
Prime Minister | Ramsay MacDonald |
Preceded by | James Stanhope |
Succeeded by | Euan Wallace |
Member of Parliament for Aberdare |
|
In office 15 November 1922 – 4 October 1946 |
|
Preceded by | Charles Stanton |
Succeeded by | David Thomas |
Personal details | |
Born |
31 December 1881 Penrhiwceiber, Glamorganshire |
Died | November 8, 1965 Leicester, Leicestershire |
(aged 83)
Nationality | British |
Political party | Labour |
Alma mater | None |
George Henry Hall, 1st Viscount Hall PC (31 December 1881 – 8 November 1965) was a British Labour politician. He served as Secretary of State for the Colonies between 1945 and 1946 and as First Lord of the Admiralty between 1946 and 1951.
Born in Penrhiwceiber, Glamorganshire, Hall started work at the Penrikyber colliery at 12 years of age. He continued to work as a collier until appointed checkweigher in 1911, and then to act as checkweigher Local Agent at the South Wales Miners' Federation until elected to Parliament in 1922.
Hall was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Aberdare in 1922 when he won the seat for Labour, defeating Charles Stanton who had held the seat since a 1915 by-election. Stanton had been a militant trade unionist before the war and had won the seat as a pro-war candidate. Hall represented Aberdare from 1922 to 1946 and served under Ramsay MacDonald as Civil Lord of the Admiralty from 1929 to 1931, under Winston Churchill as Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1940 to 1942, as Financial Secretary to the Admiralty from 1942 to 1943 and as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from 1943 to 1945 and under Clement Attlee as Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1945-1946. He was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1942 and on retirement from the House of Commons in 1946 he was raised to the peerage as Viscount Hall, of Cynon Valley in the County of Glamorgan, He then served as First Lord of the Admiralty under Attlee from 1946 to 24 1951 and as Deputy Leader of the House of Lords from 1947 to 1951.