George Hall, 1st Viscount Hall


George Henry Hall, 1st Viscount Hall, PC, 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.

Background

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.

Political career

Hall was elected Member of Parliament 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 to 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 1951 and as Deputy Leader of the House of Lords from 1947 to 1951.

Personal life

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