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Hall William Nelson
(1827—1904)

William Nelson Hall was the first black person, first Nova Scotian, and third Canadian to receive the Victoria Cross. He received the medal for his actions in the Siege of Lucknow.

Hall was born at Horton Bluff, Nova Scotia, in 1827 as the son of Jacob and Lucy Hall, who had escaped American slave owners in Maryland and were brought to freedom in Nova Scotia by the British Royal Navy. The Halls first lived in Summerville, NS where Jacob worked in a shipyard operated by Abraham Cunard until they bought a farm across the Avon River at Horton Bluff. Hall first worked in shipyards at nearby Hantsport, Nova Scotia, before going to sea at 17. He sailed first on merchant ships based out of the Minas Basin including the barque Kent of Kentville, Nova Scotia.

Hall briefly served in the United States Navy from 1847 to 1849. He served for a time aboard the USS Ohio alongside John Taylor Wood, who later supported Hall's US Navy pension claim.

Hall volunteered for the British Royal Navy in February 1852, serving at first aboard HMS Rodney. Hall fought in the Crimean War serving ashore in a naval brigade from Rodney at the battles of Inkerman and Sebastapol in 1854.

When the Indian Mutiny broke out in May 1857, Hall was on HMS Shannon en route to China. She was intercepted and ordered to Calcutta (since renamed Kolkata). A Shannon Brigade was formed of several gunners, sailors, and marines, under Captain William Peel. The ship was towed over 600 miles up the Ganges River to Allahabad. Then the force fought across country to Campbell's headquarters at Cawnpore and were in time to take part in the Siege of Lucknow.

On 16 November 1857 at Lucknow, India, naval guns were brought up close to the Shah Nujeff mosque, and the gun crews kept up a steady fire in an attempt to breach the walls, while a hail of musket balls and grenades from the mutineers inside the mosque caused heavy casualties. Able Seaman Hall and Lieutenant Thomas James Young, the battery's commander, were eventually the only survivors, all the rest having been killed or wounded, and between them they loaded and served the last gun. Hall remained with the Navy, rising to the rating of Petty Officer First Class in HMS Royal Adelaide when he retired in 1876. He returned to his home village in Horton Bluff where he ran a small farm until his death in 1904.

Canada, 2010, William Hall