Hall , Hubert , 1857-1944 , archivist

Born at Hesley Hall, near Doncaster, Yorkshire, 1857; educated at Shrewsbury School and Wren's; obtained a place in the Civil Service and entered the Public Record Office as a junior clerk, 1879; promoted to senior clerk, 1892; promoted to assistant keeper, 1912; acted as resident officer from 1891; as inspecting officer of records from 1905; retired in 1921; his official duties were in modern departmental records, but he increasingly spent his leisure in research on medieval history; literary director of the Royal Historical Society, 1891-1938; honorary secretary, 1894-1903; vice-president, 1923-1927; promoted its succession to the work of the defunct Camden Society, 1897; active in the Selden Society from 1894, and vice-president, 1939-1942; closely associated with Sidney and Beatrice Webb in their history of English local government (1906-1929) and in the foundation of the London School of Economics and Political Science, 1895; The Red Book of the Exchequer (1896), of which Hall succeeded W D Selby as editor, was criticized in J H Round's Studies on the Red Book of the Exchequer; Reader in Palaeography and Economic History, University of London, 1896-1926; taught palaeography, diplomatic and economic history at the London School of Economics, 1896-1919; and at King's College London, 1919-1926; trained many contributors to the Victoria County History; secretary of the Royal Commission on public records, 1910-1918; the chief author of the appendixes to its three reports, 1912-1919; honorary LittD, Cambridge University, 1920; Vice-President of the Historical Association, 1925-1929; Special Lecturer, London School of Economics, 1926-1930; Special Examiner, University of London, and member of the Palæography Sub-Committee, Institute of Historical Research, 1930-1938; supervised the arrangement of British family manuscripts in the Huntington Library, USA, 1931-1932; Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries; died in Rochester, 1944. Publications: Introduction to the Study of the Pipe Rolls (Pipe Roll Society, 1884); A History of the Custom-Revenue in England (1885); Society in the Elizabethan Age (1886); Court Life under the Plantagenets (1890); The Antiquities and Curiosities of the Exchequer (1891); succeeded W D Selby as editor of the 'Rolls Series' edition of The Red Book of the Exchequer (3 volumes, 1896); The Receipt Roll of the Exchequer for Michaelmas Term xxxi Henry II, AD 1185 (1899); The English Historical Review and the Red Book of the Exchequer [1899]; The Pipe Roll of the Bishopric of Winchester 1208-1209 (1903); The Commonwealth Charter of the City of Salisbury 1656 (1907); Studies in English Official Historical Documents (1908); Formula book of English official historical documents (1908-1909); Select Bibliography for the Study, Sources and Literature of English Mediaeval Economic History (1914); A Repertory of British Archives (1920); British Archives and the Sources for the History of the World War (1925); List and Index of the Publications of the Royal Historical Society, 1871-1924, and of the Camden Society, 1840-1897 (1925); contributions to historical and antiquarian journals.