George Hall, 1st Viscount Hall

Hall was born in Penrhiwceiber, Glamorganshire, son of George Hall, a miner who hailed from Marshfield, Gloucestershire and his wife Anne (née Guard), a native of Midsomer Norton, Somerset.[1] George was the second of six cildren (four sons and two dughters) born between 1880 and 1889. His parents were among the thousands of men and women who migrated to the South Wales Valleys from the West Country in the late nineteenth century, following the expansion of the steam coal trade. George Hall snr. died in 1889 and the young George was compelled to leave Penrhiwceiber elementary schoool at the age of twelve, in order to start work at the Penrikyber colliery.[1] His widowed mother had been left with a large family to support.[2]

Following an accident at the colliery which led to a prolonged period of recovery, Hall made up for his relative lack of formal education by engaging in extensive reading and self-education.[1] This may ell have been a factor in his engagement with politics and his election as a Labour member of the Mountain Ash Urban District Council (the first Labour member for the Penrhiwceiber Ward) in 1908.[1] Upon his election, when he defeated sitting Liberal member J.P. Davies by 31 votes, the Aberdare Leader described him as "a young man with very sturdy views. He is bent on backing up Labour principles, and with all his life before him looks like shaping into a leader to be dealt with in that party."[3]

Hall later served as chaorman of both the Education Committee and the Urban Council itself and he remained a member until 1926.[1] Hall 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.[1] 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. During the 1930s, with the Labour Party numbers in the Commons severely depleted after the 1931 General Election, Hall began to speak on a broader range of subjects having previously focused mainly on issues relating to his mining background.[1]

During his long political career, Hall remained closely tied to his native town and valley and was regarded as an effective and approachable constituency MP.[1] He devoted considerable energy to attract alternative industries to the Aberdare area following the decline of coal mining. It was largely through his efforts that a major new employer, Aberdare Cables, established a factoru in the town in 1937 and Hall later became a director of the company. He was also instrumental in establishing Royal Ordnance Factories at Robertstown and Rhigos during the war years as well as the new Hirwaun Trading Estate in 1945. These developments, at least to some extent, offset the impact of the closure of coal mines from the 1930s onwards.[1]

Hall served 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 to 1946.[1]

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 1951 and as Deputy Leader of the House of Lords from 1947 to 1951.

Lord Hall died in Leicester in November 1965, aged 83, and was succeeded by his son William.

• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs

Wikimedia Commons has media related to George Henry Hall, 1st Viscount Hall.

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by George Hall