Henry Hall (1661–1755) was a British lighthouse keeper who worked on the Eddystone Lighthouse, some 9 statute miles (14 kilometres) southwest of Rame Head, in the English county of Cornwall.
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Henry Hall is the oldest-known member of the Hall Family of Lighthouse Keepers that kept lights around the English and Welsh coasts from at least the mid-eighteenth century until 1913 (Robert James Hall at Spurn Head, Yorkshire). The Hall family inter-married with the Knott family (lighthouse keepers) 1730-1910 and also the Darling family which includes the famous Grace Darling.
He is remembered for his actions in 1755 following a fire at the Eddystone Lighthouse on 3 December 1755, when the wooden Rudyerd's Tower of 1706 burned down. Hall had discovered that a spark from the lamp had set the roof alight. He and his two companions were unable to put the fire out, and they were forced to retreat down the tower until eventually the lighthouse burned down to the rocks. They were rescued the next day in spite of a storm that required them to be pulled off and through the raging waters by rope. He was said in a report sent on 19 December 1755 to the Royal Society in London by Dr. Edward Spry (a surgeon at Plymouth), to be "aged 94 years, of good constitution, and extremely active for one of that age".
Hall subsequently died on Monday, 8 December 1755, aged 94, at his home in East Stonehouse, Plymouth, having shown some signs of apparent recovery before, "being seized with cold sweats and spasms of the tendons, he soon expired" (Dr. Spry). The lighthouse was rebuilt in the following four years as the famous Smeaton's Tower which was subsequently removed (except for the base), stone by stone, to Plymouth Hoe in 1882 as it was found that the rocks beneath the tower were cracking and in danger of collapse.
Dr. Spry conducted an autopsy after Hall claimed before his death "with a hoarse voice, scarce to be heard, that melted lead had run down his throat into his body" (Dr. Spry). This apparently had occurred when Hall looked up from below at the fire at the top of the tower just as some of the melted lead from the light horn (reflector) ran off dropping onto the "left side of his body, below the short ribs, in the breast, mouth and throat ... left side of the head and face, with the eye extremely burnt" (Dr. Spry). The autopsy revealed that "the diaphragmatic upper mouth of the stomach greatly inflamed and ulcerated, and the tuncia in the lower part of the stomach burnt; and from the great cavity of it took out a great piece of lead ... which weighed exactly seven ounces, five drachams and eighteen grains" (Dr. Spry). This piece of lead now resides in the National Museum of Scotland.
Dr. Spry gave the following written account of how Hall and his two colleagues had explained to him how the lead came to be in Hall's stomach: "It will perhaps be thought difficult to explain the manner, by which the lead entered the stomach: But the account, which the deceased gave me and others, was, that as he was endeavouring to extinguish the flames, which were at a considerable height over his head, the lead of the lanthorn being melted dropped down, before he was aware of it, with great force into his mouth then lifted up and open, and in such a quantity, as to cover not only his face, but all his clothes."
Dr. Spry's account was received with such skepticism by The Royal Society that he felt constrained to conduct experiments on dogs and chickens, pouring melted lead down the animals' throats, to prove that it was possible to survive, for at least a limited period, such an extreme accident. These are the first fully documented and reported British scientific experiments on live animals.
There is a small plaque dedicated to Henry Hall with a few details as to the nature of this death located in Plymouth city center, set into the pavement between Plymouth Pavilions, the Sippers pub and The Duke of Cornwall Hotel, Millbay Road.