EARLY LIFE
James Frederick Hall was born in 1810, the elder son of James and Mary Ann Hall. Little is known of his early life except that for most of the time his father was away at sea and he lived with his mother, Mary Ann, mainly in the south London area.
After returning from Australia in 1824 his father was appointed as Dispenser of the Naval hospital in Bermuda, a post which he took up in 1825.
James Hall took with him his family of three children and probably Fanny Miller, the daughter John Francis Miller, the brother of his wife Mary Ann. It is not known for certain whether Mary Ann also went to Bermuda. As no record of her death can be found in the Bermuda records it would seem possible that she may have died before the family left England. She was certainly not alive in 1828 as on the 29th March of that year James married Fanny, now 18, in Bermuda.
While his father was serving in Bermuda, probably in 1827, James Frederick, was sent back to England to take up an apprenticeship with a doctor. However this way of life does not appear to have suited him and he left this position and joined a travelling theatre company. For a while his family lost touch with him. We do not know exactly how long this state of affairs lasted, but it seems that James Hall was able to find out about his son’s movements when he returned to England in the middle of 1829. According to some notes made by George King-Hall in the 1930s James Hall paid off his son's debts to a Mrs Miller [PAGE2211], and in October 1830 received a letter of contrition from him, which had been written from India.
JAMES FREDERICK HALL IN INDIA 1829 - 1837
After recent research we now know more about James Frederick’s activities from the middle of 1828. On 26th June 1828 he enlisted, under the name of William St George (presumably the name he had used during his short thespian career), at Westminster in the Artillery of the Bombay Division of the East India Company Army. The records give his age as 19 and that he was 5 ft 6¾ inches in height, with an oval face, fresh complexion and hazel eyes.
After some initial training in England he embarked on the 5th January 1829 with 65 fellow recruits in the Herefordshire and arrived in Bombay on the 14th May. He was posted to the 2nd Battalion of Artillery and within eighteen months had been promoted to Sergeant. We also know for certain that he was in regular touch again with his family as a letter written by his father to William in July 1831 mentions that James was in good health when last heard from.
On the 7th September 1831 James married Ann Clifford. His bride, whose father had died the previous year, was aged only 14. The modern reader may be surprised at the idea of so young a girl being married, but in fact it was quite a common practice in 19th Century India and, as we will learn later, one of James’s daughters was married to a very respectable army officer at the same age.
In May 1832 James was appointed a Sub-conductor in the Ordnance Department. This rank was broadly equivalent to that of a Warrant Officer in today’s army and was a considerable promotion for a young man of 23. His success may have been partly due to family contacts as his father in law had held a similar post.
For the next five years James and Ann appear to have led a reasonably happy family life. In July 1832 they had their first child Mary Ann and in December 1833 their first son, James Clifford. Sadly Mary Ann died just after her 1st birthday, but a second daughter, Frances Elizabeth, was born in September 1835. and another daughter, Emily Jane, in July 1837.
In Sept 1833 after serving at Portsmouth and Sheerness and making a fourth convict ship voyage (male convicts this time) to Australia, James Hall was appointed to the frigate Andromache for service on the China and East Indies Station. In 1835 his ship was based at Bombay for several months and he was, after seven years, reunited with his elder son and able to get to know his young daughter-in-law and grandson, James.
We are able to obtain a feel for this period of James Clifford’s life from three letters [PAGE2212] that have survived. One of them were written in early 1833, to his father and to his sister. The other two were written in 1836 to his brother William. I hope the reader will agree that they give one an agreeable impression of their author, still only in his 20s, and show him to be an intelligent, sensitive and attractive personality. This picture of him makes the next event all the more tragic.
On the 2nd of August 1837 James Frederick died of dysentery, leaving his widow Nancy, as he called her, with three surviving children. The early life of his widow had been in many ways a sad one. By the age of 21 she had lost her father at 13, married at 14, had her first child at 16 and second at 17, lost her first child at 18 and was now widowed at the age of 20, three weeks after the birth of her fourth child. This child, Emily, survived for only eighteen months, dying in April 1839.
The subsequent history of the Hall family in India is told later in conjunction with the diaries of George King-Hall and concludes in the 1870s with the tragic story of James Clifford Hall, the only son of James Frederick [PAGE5110].