John Joseph Hall (18 February 1884 – 30 June 1949) was an Australian politician. He was born in

Eaglehawk The wedge-tailed eagle (''Aquila audax'') is the largest bird of prey in the continent of Australia. It is also found in southern New Guinea to the north and is distributed as far south as the state of Tasmania. Adults of this species have lon ...

to miner and tea merchant Joseph Hall and Isabella, ''née'' Gray. He attended state school before becoming a booking clerk with

Victorian Railways The Victorian Railways (VR), trading from 1974 as VicRail, was the state-owned operator of most rail transport in the Australian state of Victoria from 1859 to 1983. The first railways in Victoria were private companies, but when these companie ...

and a journalist with the ''

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, makin ...

Advertiser''; he was also mining correspondent for '' The Argus''. He married Clarissa Jessamine Snell on 26 December 1907, with whom he had six children. Active in the

Kyabram Reform Movement Kyabram is a town in north central Victoria, Australia. Kyabram is located in the centre of a rich irrigation district in the Goulburn River Valley, north of Melbourne. It is the second-largest town in the Shire of Campaspe, situated between t ...

, he was a founder of the

Victorian Farmers' Union The Victorian Farmers' Union (VFU) was an association of farmers and primary producers formed in 1914 in the Australian state of Victoria. Although initially formed as an "absolutely non-political" entity, the VFU became a political party in 1916 ...

(VFU) in 1916 and served as its general secretary from 1916 to 1918. In 1917 he was elected to the

Victorian Legislative Assembly The Victorian Legislative Assembly is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Victoria in Australia; the upper house being the Victorian Legislative Council. Both houses sit at Parliament House in Spring Street, Melbourne. The presiding ...

as the member for Kara Kara, but he was defeated on a recount in February 1918. He was subsequently the VFU's candidate for the 1918 federal Flinders by-election, but withdrew after extracting a promise from the Nationalist Party to introduce

preferential voting {{short description, Election systems Preferential voting or preference voting (PV) may refer to different election systems or groups of election systems: * Ranked voting methods, all election methods that involve ranking candidates in order of pr ...

. Despite several attempts, Hall never re-entered parliament. He remained a journalist, editing the ''Farmer's Advocate'' (1917–24), the ''Morning Post'' (1924–27) and the ''Leader'' (1946–49). Hall died in 1949 in

Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States * Richmond, London, a part of London * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, ...

References

1884 births 1949 deaths Members of the Victorian Legislative Assembly National Party of Australia members of the Parliament of Victoria 20th-century Australian politicians {{Australia-National-politician-stub