Thomas Sergeant Hall (23 December 1858 – 21 December 1915) was an Australian

geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, alt ...

and

biologist A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual cell, a multicellular organism, or a community of interacting populations. They usually speciali ...

, recipient of

The Murchison Fund The Murchison Fund is an award given by the Geological Society of London to researchers under the age of 40 who have contributed substantially to the study of hard rock and tectonic geology. It is named in honour of Prof. Roderick Impey Murchison. ...

in 1901.

Early life

Hall was born in

Geelong Geelong ( ) ( Wathawurrung: ''Djilang''/''Djalang'') is a port city in the south eastern Australian state of Victoria, located at the eastern end of Corio Bay (the smaller western portion of Port Phillip Bay) and the left bank of Barwon ...

, the son of Thomas March Hall, a business man originally from

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershir ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

and Elizabeth, ''née'' Walshe, from

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...

. Hall was educated at the

Geelong Grammar School Geelong Grammar School is an Independent school, independent Anglican co-educational Boarding school, boarding and day school. The school's main campus is located in Corio, Victoria, Corio on the northern outskirts of Geelong, Victoria, Australia, ...

where he came under the influence of James L. Cuthbertson. He was a junior master at Wesley College in 1879–80, then Hawthorn College and then went to the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb n ...

, where he took his B.A. degree in 1886 with honours in natural science. This included work in

palaeontology Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

under Sir Frederick McCoy. Hall taught for a year at Girton College, Sandhurst (now

Bendigo Bendigo ( ) is a city in Victoria, Australia, located in the Bendigo Valley near the geographical centre of the state and approximately north-west of Melbourne, the state capital. As of 2019, Bendigo had an urban population of 100,991, mak ...

) in 1887, but returned to the university and did a three years' course in biology under Professor Sir Baldwin Spencer.

Career

Hall took a leading part in the forming of the university science club, and through it met Dr G. B. Pritchard with whom he was later to do valuable work in geology. Hall was a successful director of the Castlemaine school of mines from 1890 to 1893, and in the latter year became lecturer in biology at Melbourne university. Hall held this position until his death but found time for many other activities. In 1899 Hall published a ''Catalogue of the Scientific and Technical Periodical Literature in the Libraries of Victoria''. A second and enlarged edition, in which he was assisted by Mr E. R. Pitt of the public library,

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a me ...

, appeared in 1911. He did much valuable work for the

Field Naturalists Club of Victoria The Field Naturalists Club of Victoria (FNCV) is an Australian natural history and conservation organisation. It was founded in May 1880 by a group of nature enthusiasts that included Thomas Pennington Lucas. Sophie C. Ducker,Lucas, Arthur Henr ...

(president 1901–1903), the

Royal Society of Victoria The Royal Society of Victoria (RSV) is the oldest scientific society in the state of Victoria in Australia. Foundation In 1854 two organisations formed with similar aims and membership, these being ''The Philosophical Society of Victoria'' (f ...

, and the

Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science The Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science (ANZAAS) is an organisation that was founded in 1888 as the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science to promote science. It was modelled on the British As ...

. His ''Victorian Hill and Dale'' (1909), describing the geology of the country around Melbourne, is a model book of popular science, written without a trace of scientific jargon; there is barely a technical term in its 150 pages. He did not write a large number of papers, but his work on the

graptolite Graptolites are a group of colonial animals, members of the subclass Graptolithina within the class Pterobranchia. These filter-feeding organisms are known chiefly from fossils found from the Middle Cambrian (Miaolingian, Wuliuan) through the L ...

rocks of Victoria led to his being made the recipient of

of the

Geological Society of London The Geological Society of London, known commonly as the Geological Society, is a learned society based in the United Kingdom. It is the oldest national geological society in the world and the largest in Europe with more than 12,000 Fellows. Fe ...

in 1901. One of his major discoveries was the key to the unravelling of the complex

Ordovician The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period million years ago (Mya) to the start of the Silurian Period Mya. ...

sequence.

Family

He married Miss Eva Lucie Annie Hill on 21 December 1891, who survived him along with three sons and a daughter.

Legacy

Hall became ill early in 1915, but carried on his work until shortly before his death from chronic

nephritis Nephritis is inflammation of the kidneys and may involve the glomeruli, tubules, or interstitial tissue surrounding the glomeruli and tubules. It is one of several different types of nephropathy. Types * Glomerulonephritis is inflammation ...

on 21 December 1915. He was given the honorary degree of D.Sc. by Melbourne University in 1908. Hall's work with Dr Pritchard on the tertiary fossiliferous strata of Victoria, and his own work on the graptolite rocks of Victoria gives him a permanent place in the history of Australian geology.

References

* *Thomas A. Darragh,
Hall, Thomas Sergeant (1858 - 1915)
, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 9, MUP, 1983, pp 166–167. Retrieved 20 January 2009 {{DEFAULTSORT:Hall, Thomas Sergeant 1858 births 1915 deaths Australian biologists Geologists from Melbourne University of Melbourne faculty People educated at Geelong Grammar School