Journal editor and writer. He was born at Geneva barracks, County Waterford, where his father, Robert Hall (1753–1836), was an officer in the Devon and Cornwall Fencibles. In c. 1802 the family moved to Topsham in Devon but later returned to Ireland. Hall developed an early interest in literature and the arts. His first poem was occasioned by the death of his eldest brother, Revis, at the battle of Albuera in 1811. In 1822 Hall moved to London. He was briefly employed as secretary to the exiled Italian poet Ugo Foscolo (1778–1827) and later worked for a period on Sir Robert Wilson’s (1777–1849; DNB) attempt to raise an Anglo-Spanish legion against France. Hall married Anna Marie, née Fielding (1800–1881; DNB) in 1824. The couple both embarked on careers as literary professionals and moved in literary and artistic circles. In 1827 Hall’s editorship of The Amulet, or Christian and Literary Remembrancer brought him into an occasional correspondence with Southey, to whom he sent a copy. Southey, in turn, contributed to the annual; his ‘Lines Written Upon the Death of Princess Charlotte’ was published in the 1829 volume.