11 Facts About Basil Hall

Basil Hall was a British naval officer from Scotland, a traveller, and an author.

Basil Hall was the second son of Sir James Hall, 4th Baronet, an eminent man of science.

Basil Hall was educated at the Royal High School and joined the Royal Navy in 1802, being commissioned a Lieutenant in 1808, and later rising to the rank of captain.

In 1813, Basil Hall published, along with Professor John Playfair a description of the granitic intrusions within the sedimentary sandstone structures that he saw in the Platteklip Gorge near the Table Mountain in the Cape of Good Hope.

Basil Hall explored Java in 1813 and, as a part of a diplomatic mission to China under Lord Amherst in 1816 undertook surveys of the west coast of Korea and the outlying Ryukyu Islands.

Basil Hall's journals provide one of the few accounts of the wreck of the Arniston in 1815, which gave its name to the seaside town of Arniston, South Africa.

Basil Hall returned to England in spring 1823 and Conway was paid off.

In 1826, when Sir Walter Scott was sunk in depression following his wife's death and financial ruin, it was Basil Hall who organised a trip to Naples for Scott, managing to persuade the government to place a ship at his disposal.

Basil Hall "liked the view of the city from the river, the plentiful trees, but did not approve of the wide streets that afforded so little shade".

In 1829 Basil Hall published Travels in North America, which caused some offence due to his criticisms of American society.

In 1834, Basil Hall apparently accepted an invitation from Jane Cranstoun, the Countess of Purgstall, to visit her estates in Styria, which she bequeathed two years later to the eminent historian and Orientalist, Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall.