Admiral Admiral is one of the highest ranks in some navies. In the Commonwealth nations and the United States, a "full" admiral is equivalent to a "full" general in the army or the air force, and is above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet, ...

Sir William King-Hall, (11 March 1816 – 29 July 1886) was a

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

officer who served as

Commander-in-Chief, The Nore The Commander-in-Chief, The Nore, was an operational commander of the Royal Navy. His subordinate units, establishments, and staff were sometimes informally known as the Nore Station or Nore Command. The Nore is a sandbank at the mouth of the Th ...

from 1877 to 1879.

Naval career

King-Hall joined the

in 1829,William Loney RN
/ref> and took part in operations off the coast of

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

in 1840. Promoted to

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

in 1853 he commanded during the bombardment and capture of Fort Bomarsund and then commanded during the attack on the Fortress of Sveaborg near

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

during the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...

. King-Hall also commanded during the

Second Opium War The Second Opium War (), also known as the Second Anglo-Sino War, the Second China War, the Arrow War, or the Anglo-French expedition to China, was a colonial war lasting from 1856 to 1860, which pitted the British Empire and the French Emp ...

and took part in the first attack on Canton in late 1856 and then the assault on the Taku Forts in 1858. He later commanded , , and then . King-Hall was appointed Superintendent of

Sheerness Sheerness () is a town and civil parish beside the mouth of the River Medway on the north-west corner of the Isle of Sheppey in north Kent, England. With a population of 11,938, it is the second largest town on the island after the nearby town ...

dockyard in 1865, Superintendent of Devonport dockyard in 1871 and

in 1877 before retiring in 1881.

Family

In 1848 King-Hall married Louisa Forman and in 1880 he married Charlotte Tillotson (née Simpson): they had two sons (Admiral Sir Sir George King-Hall and Admiral Sir Herbert King-Hall) and one daughter. There is a tablet in his memory at St Annes Church in Sutton Bonnington, Nottinghamshire.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:King-Hall, William 1816 births 1886 deaths Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath Royal Navy admirals Royal Navy personnel of the Crimean War Royal Navy personnel of the Second Opium War

Naval career

Family

See also

References