Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hall, Charles (1745?-1825?)
HALL, CHARLES, M.D. (1745?–1826?), writer on economics, seems to be identical with the 'Carolus Hall, Anglus,' who became a student of Leyden, 30 May 1765 (Peacock, Leyden Students, Index Soc., p. 45). He afterwards took the degree of M.D., and published at Shrewsbury in 1785 'The Medical Family Instructor, with an Appendix on Canine Madness.' In 1805 appeared his 'Effects of Civilisation on the People in European States' (London, 8vo). In this remarkable work Hall anticipates later socialist theories; analyses the defects of the existing conditions of society; and claims to prove that the working classes in his day 'retained only one-eighth part of the produce of their own labour.' At the date of publication Hall was suffering extreme poverty owing to defeat in a law suit, and he soon afterwards removed to the Fleet prison. His friends offered to pay for his release, but he deemed that he had been unjustly treated by the law courts, and resolved to die in prison. He died in the Fleet, aged about 80. His friend, John Minter Morgan, reprinted Hall's 'Effects' in his 'Phoenix Library' (London, 1849). In his 'Hampden in the 19th Century,' 1834, i. 20-1, Morgan described Hall as a man of classical and scientific attainments. Approving mention is made of Hall's arguments in Charles Bray's 'Philosophy of Necessity,' 1841, ii. 657, App., and in Mary Hennell's ' Outlines of Social Systems,' 1841, p. 240.
[Prof. Anton Menger's Das Recht auf den vollen Arbeitsertrag in geschichtlicher Darstellung, Stuttgart, 1886, pp. 45-9; J. M. Morgan's works cited above; Watt's Bibl. Brit.; information from Dr. Stephan Bauer of Vienna.]