Dr. Rambottom\u27s contribution to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press 2004

Ramsbottom, John D.

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Butler UniversityDigital Commons @ Butler UniversityScholarship and Professional Work - LAS College of Liberal Arts & Sciences2004Hall, George (bap. 1613, d. 1668)John D. RamsbottomButler University, jramsbot@butler.eduFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/facsch_papersPart of the European History Commons, and the Public History CommonsThis Book Chapter is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at Digital Commons @ Butler University. It hasbeen accepted for inclusion in Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Butler University. Formore information, please contact fgaede@butler.edu.Recommended CitationRamsbottom, John D., "Hall, George (bap. 1613, d. 1668)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Online Edition / (2004): 1-2.Available at http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/facsch_papers/710Hall, George (bap. 1613, d. 1668), bishop ofChesterby John D. Ramsbottom© Oxford University Press 2004–15 All rights reservedHall, George (bap. 1613, d. 1668), bishop of Chester, was the third son of JosephHall (1574–1656), bishop of Exeter from 1627 to 1641 and of Norwich from 1641 to1647, and his wife, Elizabeth Winiff (1582/3–1652). George was baptized on 24August 1613 at Waltham Abbey, Essex, where his father was the rector for manyyears. He entered Exeter College, Oxford, in 1628, graduated BA in April 1631 andproceeded MA in January 1634 (a degree which was incorporated at Cambridge thefollowing year). From 1632 until his resignation in June 1638 he was a fellow ofExeter College. He became vicar of Menheniot, Cornwall, in October 1637, aprebendary of Exeter Cathedral in December 1639, and archdeacon of Cornwall onthe resignation of his eldest brother, Robert, in October 1641. He married GertrudeMeredith (d. 1669), daughter of Edward Meredith of Maristow, on 28 June 1641.During the civil war Hall was sequestered from vicarage, prebend, andarchdeaconry and was prevented from keeping a school, but he and his wife bothreceived compensation from parliament. In November 1651 he was chosen as‘minister’ at St Bartholomew by the Exchange in London, in spite of oppositionfrom five or six vestrymen who attempted to delay the proceedings in favour ofother candidates. On 5 January 1654 the vestry elected Hall as rector, but this wasdisallowed by the keepers of the great seal, to whom the living belonged. Thereafterhe was admitted to the rectory of Berwick, Sussex, and of St Botolph, Aldersgate,London (1654–5). At the Restoration, Hall was created DD and became chaplain toCharles II, then canon of Windsor and archdeacon of Canterbury. He was electedbishop of Chester on 24 April 1662 (consecrated 11 May), serving until his death on23 August 1668. The oft-repeated story that he was mortally wounded by a knife inhis pocket when he fell from his garden mount first appears in Thomas Birch's Lifeof … Tillotson (2nd edn, 1753, 38). He was buried in the chancel of Wigan church,Lancashire.Hall's position in the Restoration church, like that of many Cromwellianconformists, was ambiguous. On the one hand, he was a pluralist prelate, whoresided at the comfortable rectory of Wigan, granted him by Sir Orlando Bridgman,while failing to supervise the routine business of his see, where in his timepresentations to livings or subscriptions by clergy were recorded only ‘by chance’(bishop's act book, fol. 137). Hall championed conformity to the Anglican liturgy;according to one dissenter ‘his letter to the Bp of London was of utmost importancetow[ards] the crossinge of the indulgence’ proposed by the king in 1662 (Diary ofthe Rev. Henry Newcome, 119). But Hall also appears to have espoused his father'smoderation in devotional matters. During the interregnum he found himself‘ingaged, betweene opposite Parties, which I was to speake unto; the rigidPunctilio-men, both of the right hand, and of the left’ (G. Hall, God's Appearing forthe Tribe of Levi, 1655, sigs. A2v–3). He published a satirical attack on theOxford DNB article: Hall, George http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxyiub.uits.iu.edu/view/printable/119571 of 2 9/17/2015 4:16 PMcommon Catholic enemy, The Triumphs of Rome over Despised Protestancie(1655, repr. 1667). After the Restoration he was a constant preacher in theneighbourhood of Wigan, his sermons regularly attracting the Presbyterian diaristRobert Lowe and his companions. On one such occasion Hall inveighed ‘againstatheisticalnes’ (Diary of Roger Lowe, 105), and he did not hesitate to employ thesame theme in the House of Lords (G. Hall, A Fast Sermon Preached … on the Dayof Solemn Humiliation for the Continuing Pestilence, 1666). Hall's marriage waschildless. Apart from providing for his widow—who was to survive him only bysome seven months—during her lifetime, Hall bequeathed his entire landed estateto Exeter College, leaving £100 for the poor of Waltham Abbey and no legacy at allto his relations. His youngest brother, Samuel, felt aggrieved by this will, bringingsuit over it in the court of arches in 1671.JOHN D. RAMSBOTTOMSources  G. Ormerod, The history of the county palatine and city of Chester, 2nd edn, ed. T. Helsby, 3vols. (1882) · Wood, Ath. Oxon., 1st edn · Walker rev. · E. Freshfield, ed., The vestry minute books of theparish of St. Bartholomew Exchange in the City of London, 1567–1676 (privately printed, London,1890) · The diary of Roger Lowe, ed. W. L. Sachse (1938) · W. A. Shaw, A history of the English churchduring the civil wars and under the Commonwealth, 1640–1660, 2 vols. (1900) · The diary of the Rev.Henry Newcome, from September 30, 1661, to September 29, 1663, ed. T. Heywood, Chetham Society,18 (1849) · T. Birch, The life of the Most Reverend Dr John Tillotson, lord archbishop of Canterbury,2nd edn (1753) · J. Spurr, The Restoration Church of England, 1646–1689 (1991) · J. Houston, ed.,Index of cases in the records of the court of arches, British RS, 85 (1972) · bishop's act book, Chester,1576–1686, Ches. & Chester ALSS, EDA1/4 · C. W. Boase, ed., Registrum Collegii Exoniensis, new edn,OHS, 27 (1894) · DNBLikenesses  oils, Exeter College, Oxford · portrait, Emmanuel College, CambridgeWealth at death  landed estate to Exeter College, Oxford; £100 to poor of Waltham Abbey; provisionfor widow's lifetime; nothing else to relatives: will, TNA: PRO, PROB 11/328, sig. 164© Oxford University Press 2004–15 All rights reservedJohn D. Ramsbottom, ‘Hall, George (bap. 1613, d. 1668)’, Oxford Dictionary of NationalBiography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/11957, accessed 17 Sept 2015]George Hall (bap. 1613, d. 1668): doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/11957Oxford DNB article: Hall, George http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxyiub.uits.iu.edu/view/printable/119572 of 2 9/17/2015 4:16 PM

Hall, George (bap. 1613, d. 1668)

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Hall, George (bap. 1613, d. 1668)

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