Hall, John
ACHIEVEMENT(S): First canned food
DATE/PLACE OF BIRTH: 1764, at Laverstoke, England, late 18th and
early 19th century
DATE/PLACE/AGE AT DEATH: 1836
DISCIPLINE: Industrialist
FIELD: Industry
LANGUAGE: English
EDUCATION: ?
MAJOR WORK:
LIFE AND TIMES:
John Hall was born in 1764 at Laverstoke, the son of a millwright. In 1785 he set up a business at a small blacksmith's shop in Dartford, and when the firm prospered he moved to larger premises and set up a foundry, serving paper mills locally and as far away as Penicuik in Scotland. In 1791 he married Sarah Brame (whose sister married Donkin*).
Many famous engineers learnt their trade at Hall's engineering works, including Trevithick* and Donkin. Together with Donkin and others John Hall set up the Society of Master Millwrights in 1805. It was to John Hall's works that the Robert* model paper machine was brought in 1801 on the instructions of the Fourdrinier’s*. Work was conducted on the invention by Donkin at the request of John Hall until June 1802, when the Fourdrinier’s proposed that Donkin should find premises in London to continue the work on their behalf. Hall was happy for this to happen, as he was extremely busy in his factory and it was clear to him that the development of the Robert invention into a commercially viable machine was going to take some time.
In 1810 Hall, in association with Bryan Donkin and *, bought a French patent from Appert* for preserving foodstuffs, especially meat, by canning. After several years spent in developing the idea, factories were set up at Bermondsey and in Cork. The products were sold to the general public and to the Royal Navy, from an office in Cornhill, London.
At the time of his death in 1836, apart from his engineering works, Hall owned an explosives factory at Faversham, a paper mill at Horton Kirby, a flour mill at Chislehurst, and a stall at Covent Garden Market, supplied from the market garden inherited by his wife.
ASSESSMENT: A craftsman and entrepreneur whose development of canned food and papermaking had a major impact on nineteenth century life.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: Hall’s explosives factory used Schonbein*’s gun cotton.
His company supplied explorer James Ross*
ONELINER: John Hall, first canner of food
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Pilkington, Austin, Frogmore and the First Fourdrinier, The British Paper Company, 1990.
While working for the Duke of Dorset, Donkin consulted the engineer John Smeaton, an acquaintance of his father, as to how he could become an engineer.[2] At Smeaton's advice in 1792 he apprenticed himself to John Hall in Dartford, Kent, who had founded the Dartford Iron Works in 1785. Shortly after completing his apprenticeship, he set himself up in Dartford, with the support of John Hall, making moulds for paper works, for at that time all paper making was done by hand. In 1798 he married Mary Brames, daughter of Peter Brames, a neighbouring land owner and market gardener, and a prominent supporter of the Methodist movement. By doing so Donkin became brother in law to John Hall, who had married Mary's elder sister Sarah in 1791.
[John Hall (engineer) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hall_(engineer%29)
PARENTS: ?
SIBLINGS: ?
SPOUSE: Sarah Brame, married 1791
CHILDREN: Six sons, one daughter