Royal Navy – HMS Venerable
William Brasier Hall was the elder son of Joseph and Annie Hall, born at Leeds on 13 February 1875. He was baptised at St George’s, Leeds on 21 March 1875.
He entered service with the Royal Navy on 29 June 1894, as an engineer and was promoted to Engineer Lieutenant in 1899. Over the years prior to the Great War he saw service around the world and attained the rank of Engineer Commander on 1 July 1911.
When war broke out in August 1914 he was Chief Engineer Commander aboard HMS Venerable and appears to have spent the remainder of his service there. This was a pre-Dreadnought battleship, completed in November 1902. Its principal armament was four 12” guns and twelve 6” guns. The ship took part in the bombardment of the Belgian coast in 1915, followed by similar activity at the Dardanelles later that year. It officially replaced the new Dreadnought HMS Queen Elizabeth at the Dardanelles. Following the end of that campaign the ship transferred to the Adriatic, where it stayed until early 1917.
After a generally exemplary service record, at an enquiry on 4 May 1916 Hall was blamed for displaying slackness of organisation and supervision and cautioned to exercise greater care in the future. This was regarding the accidental flooding of the fore 12 pounder and both fore 6” magazines on 1 February 1916.
He was generally considered as a zealous, capable, cool, reliable and trustworthy officer and a ‘great reader’ and possibly the onset of illness had affected Hall’s performance. On 1 May 1917 he was admitted to Granton RN Hospital, with a suspected gastric ulcer. On the following day he was transferred to the Royal Navy hospital at Haslar. He remained at Haslar from 3 May to 1 June 1917, when he was placed on the Retired List, as being considered unfit for further RN service: he was suffering from carcinoma of the stomach.
He died at home, Doverow House, Stonehouse on 23 September 1917, aged 42. His family erected a stone cross in the churchyard of St Cyr’s Church, to mark his grave.
His Service File at the National Archives is ADM 196/13
Researched by Graham Adams 18 January 2012