Hall, SAMUEL CARTER, author and editor, fourth son of Colonel Robert Hall, was born at Geneva Barracks, County Waterford, 9th May 1800. Coming to London from Ireland in 1822, he studied law, and became a gallery reporter for the New Times. He established the Amulet (1825), an annual, which he edited for several years; succeeded the poet Campbell as editor of the New Monthly Magazine; was sub-editor of the John Bull; and did other journalistic work before he founded and edited the Art Journal (1839-80), which has done so much to create a public for art. He was a pertinacious and indefatigable worker and skilful compiler, the joint works written and edited by Mr and Mrs S. C. Hall exceeding 500 volumes. Amongst these were Ireland, its Scenery, &c. (illus. 1841-43); The Book of Gems; British Ballads, one of the fine-art books of the century; and Baronial Halls. A testimonial of £1600 was presented to him by friends in 1874, and in 1880 he received a civil-list pension of £150 a year. He died 16th March 1889. During his lifetime he had associated with most of the best men and women of his time, and showed a benevolent and helpful disposition. See his Retrospect of a Long Life (2 vols. 1883), and Mrs Mayo's 'Recollections of Two Old Friends' (Leisure Hour, May 1889).
MRS S. C. HALL (Anna Maria Fielding), novelist, and wife of the preceding, was born in Dublin on 6th January 1800. She was brought up by her widowed mother at Graige, on the coast of Wexford, and in her fifteenth year came to London, where her education was completed. In 1824 she married Samuel Carter Hall, who encouraged her to write, and was her guide and counsellor in the composition of her tales and novels, which owed much to his pruning and polishing. She possessed, however, a genuine and spontaneous literary gift. Her first work, Sketches of Irish Character (1828), established her reputation. She wrote nine novels, and hundreds of shorter stories, including The Buccaneer (1832); Tales of Woman's Trials (1834); The Outlaw (1835); The French Refugee, a drama, which in 1836 was acted for about fifty nights at the St James's Theatre, London; Uncle Horace (1837); Lights and Shadows of Irish Character (1838); Marian (1839); Midsummer Eve (1843); The Whiteboy (1845), &c. Her Stories of the Irish Peasantry appeared originally in Chambers's Journal. Besides assisting her husband in various works, and by contributions to the Art Journal, she furnished numerous articles to periodicals, edited the St James's Magazine for a year, and wrote various books for the young. Of these Uncle Sam's Money-box is one of the best. She assisted in the formation of the Governesses' Benevolent Institution, a hospital for consumptives, and the Nightingale Fund, which resulted in the endowment of a training-school for nurses. Mrs Hall died January 30, 1881.