William Edward Hall

William Edward Hall (22 August 183530 November 1894) was an English lawyer and mountaineer who published some influential works on international law.

Early life Hall was the only child of William Hall, a doctor and descendant of a junior branch of the "Halls of Dunglass", and of Charlotte née Cotton.

He was born at Leatherhead, Surrey, but spent his childhood abroad, his father acting as physician to the King of Hanover, and subsequently to the British legation at Naples. Hence, perhaps, the son's taste in later life for art and modern languages. He was educated privately till, at the early age of seventeen, he matriculated at University College, Oxford, where in 1856 he took his degree with a first class in the then recently instituted school of law and history, gaining, three years afterwards, the Chancellor's prize for an essay upon the effect on Spain of the discovery of the precious metals in America.

His travels took him to Lapland, Egypt, South America and India. He performed valuable service for several government offices, in 1871 as inspector of returns under the Elementary Education Act 1870, in 1877 by reports to the Board of Trade on oyster fisheries, in France as well as in England. All the time, he was amassing materials for ambitious works on the history of civilization, and of the British Empire.

His principal fame rests on his work on international law. In 1874 he published a book on the doctrine of neutrality, Rights and Duties of Neutrals. He followed this in 1880 by his magnum opus, his Treatise on International Law. Seen by some as "unquestionably the best book upon the subject in the English language", the book was, according to the legal author Arthur Nussbaum, well planned and exact, using crisp English and avoiding some of the "rhetorical vagueness" of earlier works on the subject. In 1894 Hall published a book on, the Foreign Jurisdictions of the British Crown.

Mountaineering Hall was an active member of the Alpine Club. He was one of the party which, in 1861, made the first ascent of the Lyskamm. In 1863 he made the first ascent of the Dent d'Hérens on 12 August, followed a few days later by the first ascent of the Parrotspitze on 16 August.

Private life Hall married Imogen, daughter of William Robert Grove in 1866. Imogen died in 1886 and in 1891 Hall married Alice Hill. Hall had no children by either marriage. He died suddenly at Coker Court, Somerset.

Honours Institut de Droit International: Associ (1875) Membre (1882)