Engineer and Pioneer of Tinned Iron Food Canning. He was the son of a millwright, and served an apprenticeship at the Portal family’s paper mill in Laverstoke in Hampshire, England. In 1784 he travelled to Dartford in Kent to find work. He was given a one year contract to repair the paper mill of T. H. Saunders at nearby Hawley. The quality of his work earned him recommendations to other local mill owners, and in 1875 he went into business as a self employed blacksmith in Dartford. Much of his work came from repairing mills, but he also took on smaller jobs like shoeing horses, making harness parts and designing decorative iron gates. The business was so successful that he was soon able to expand. He was a pioneer in the construction of marine steam engines, building the first “trunk” engine in 1835. This enabled a vertical engine to be fitted in the restricted space of a ship. His company became famous for its beam engines, and produced a total of 356. He then went into partnership with engineer Bryan Donkin, and together they set up Britain’s first tinned iron food canning factory. The Royal Navy and a number of Arctic explorers were among their customers, and examples of their food cans from the 1824 Arctic expedition still contained edible food when they were discovered 140 years later. He earned the nick name “gunpowder Hall” when he purchased the gunpowder factory at Faversham in Kent from the government. His engineering firm still trades internationally under the name “J. and E. Hall”. (bio by: js)