John Hall (1633–1710) was an English churchman and academic, Master of

Pembroke College, Oxford Pembroke College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford, is located on Pembroke Square, Oxford. The college was founded in 1624 by King James I of England and VI of Scotland, using in part the endowment of merchant Thomas Tesdale ...

, and

Bishop of Bristol The Bishop of Bristol heads the Church of England Diocese of Bristol in the Province of Canterbury, in England. The present diocese covers parts of the counties of Somerset and Gloucestershire together with a small area of Wiltshire. The see ...

. He was known as the last of the English bishops to hold to traditional

Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to rid the Church of England of what they considered to be Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should b ...

views.

Life

He was son of John Hall, vicar of

Bromsgrove Bromsgrove is a town in Worcestershire, England, about north-east of Worcester and south-west of Birmingham city centre. It had a population of 34,755 in at the 2021 census. It gives its name to the wider Bromsgrove District, of which it is ...

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Shropshire, Staffordshire, and the West Midlands (county), West ...

, and Anne his wife, and was born at his father's vicarage on 29 January 1633. His extended family held presbyterian views; an uncle, Thomas Hall, was an ejected minister in 1662. His brother-in-law, John Spilsbury, held the vicarage of Bromsgrove under the Commonwealth, and also was ejected; his nephew John Spilsbury, a dissenting minister at

Kidderminster Kidderminster is a market town and civil parish in Worcestershire, England, south-west of Birmingham and north of Worcester, England, Worcester. Located north of the River Stour, Worcestershire, River Stour and east of the River Severn, in th ...

, became his heir. John Hall was admitted to Merchant Taylors' School in June 1644, and went on to

, where he was under the tuition of another uncle, Edmund Hall. Hall became a scholar of Pembroke in 1650, and graduated B. A. in 1651, and M.A. in 1653, when he was also elected fellow. He was chosen Master of Pembroke on 31 December 1664, and appointed to the college living of

St Aldate's, Oxford St Aldate's (, like "all dates") is a street in central Oxford, England, named after Saint Aldate, but formerly known as Fish Street. Museum and Church The street runs south from the generally acknowledged centre of Oxford at Carfax, Oxford ...

, which he held ''

in commendam In canon law, commenda (or ''in commendam'') was a form of transferring an ecclesiastical benefice ''in trust'' to the ''custody'' of a patron. The phrase ''in commendam'' was originally applied to the provisional occupation of an ecclesiastica ...

'' till his death. He took his degree of B.D. in 1666, and of D.D. in 1669. He became Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Oxford on 24 March 1676. He preached bitterly against Catholic at St. Mary's on 5 November at the time of the

Popish Plot The Popish Plot was a fictitious conspiracy invented by Titus Oates that between 1678 and 1681 gripped the kingdoms of England and Scotland in anti-Catholic hysteria. Oates alleged that there was an extensive Catholic conspiracy to assassinat ...

allegations in 1678. He was also domestic chaplain to Charles II. Hall was elected bishop of Bristol, but continued to hold his mastership. He was consecrated in

Bow Church Bow Church is the parish church of St Mary and Holy Trinity, Stratford, Bow. It is located on a central reservation site in Bow Road (part of the A11), in Bow, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. There has been a church on the same site fo ...

on 30 August 1691; the MP Thomas Foley had earlier pressed the new king in July 1689 to have him as the new

Bishop of Winchester The Bishop of Winchester is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Winchester in the Church of England. The bishop's seat (''cathedra'') is at Winchester Cathedral in Hampshire. The Bishop of Winchester has always held ''ex officio'' the offic ...

.John Trevor Cliffe, ''The Puritan Gentry Besieged, 1650-1700'' (1993), p. 92. He chiefly resided at Oxford, where in 1695 he built a new Master's Lodge. He died there in February 1710, and was buried in the church of at Bromsgrove, where a monument was erected to him on the south wall of the chancel, with an epitaph by William Adams (1673–1714), student of Christ Church and rector of Stanton-on-Wye. He left generous legacies.

Notes

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hall, John 1633 births 1710 deaths Masters of Pembroke College, Oxford Bishops of Bristol People associated with the Popish Plot 17th-century English Puritan ministers Lady Margaret Professors of Divinity 17th-century Church of England bishops 18th-century Church of England bishops