Castle LogoFamily history quill pen image halefamily.net
  Link Monmouthshire Link Gloucestershire Link Miscellaneous Link Parish Registers Link Census Returns Link Help Pages  

Hales
NOTABLE HALEs

Here are a few HALEs who have won fame, for a variety of reasons

ALEXANDER of HAILES (d. 1245) English Schoolman, known as the 'Irrefragable Doctor'.
Originally an ecclesiastic of Hailes, Gloucestershire, (Eng.) he became a professor of philosophy and theology in Paris, and later entered the Franciscan order. His chief work was the Summa Universae Theologiae.

Sir JAMES HALES - Justice of the Common Pleas In the reign of Henry VIII (1509 - 1574) the family of HALES made its first appearance among the Judges of England. James Hales the eldest son of John Hales and Isabel Harry of the Dungeon near Canterbury was a member of Gray's Inn, where he was an ancient in 1528, autumn reader in 1533, double Lent reader in 1537, and a triple Lent reader in 1540. James Hales was created a knight of the Bath at the coronation of Edward V, on February 20, 1547. He married Margaret Hales daughter of Thomas Hales of Henley-on-Thames. On May 10, 1549 he was appointed a judge of the common pleas. Sir James Hales had the privilege of keeping swans, a much sought after grant from the crown, which allowed captivity on his own private waters of this royal bird. The birds were pinioned and marked with his private marking.

JOHN HALES (1584-1656) English clergyman, known as the 'Ever-memorable',
born in Bath (Eng.) Educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford he became a fellow and lecturer at Merton College. In 1616 he went to The Hague as chaplain to the ambassador, Sir Dudley Carleton, for whom he made a report of the famous synod of Dort, which convinced him of the futility of extreme dogma, and so inspirirng him to reject Calvinism.
In 1619 he returned to Eton to study. His too-liberal Tract, concerning Scism and Schismatics displeased Laud, who was, however, satisfied after a personal conference and an apologetic letter, and appointed him to a canonry at Windsor (1639).

Sir MATTHEW HALE (Nov 1 1609 - Dec 25 1676) of Alderley, Gloucestershire was
Lord Chief Justice of England. He studied at Oxford and was called to the bar in 1637. Despite his support for the Royalists he was renowned for his judicial impartiality during the Civil War (1642-51) and was persuaded by friends to accept the appointment to justice of the common pleas when Cromwell became Lord Protector. He served in this capacity from 1654 until Cromwell's death in 1658. After the Restoration he refused to serve as a judge and was returned as Member of Parliament for Oxford. In 1660 he was made chief-baron of the Exchequer. He became chief justice of the King's bench in 1671.

Devout, learned, acute and sensible, he wrote a History of the Common Law (1713) and a History of the Pleas of the Crown, both still important, and the Prerogatives of the King as well as religious works.

His work on the Bench - in an age when these attributes were not common even among judges - was characterized by singular personal integrity and impartiality. He directed proceedings with scrupulous fairness toward prisoners.

His place amongst the principal figures in the history of English common law is reflected in the size of his entry in the Dictionary of National Biography which runs to seven pages.
See Sir Matthew HALE

Sir BERNARD HALE (1677 - 1729) Judge.
Eighth son of WILLIAM HALE of King's Walden, Hertfordshire. Born Mar 1677, entered Gray's Inn October 1696, called to the bar February 1704.
Appointed Lord Chief Baron of the Irish exchequer 28th June 1722, and transferred to the English court of exchequer as a Puisne Baron June 1st 1725.Knighted on February 4th 1726.
He died in Red Lion Square, London, on November 7th 1729 and was buried in the parish of King's Walden, the manor of which had been in his family since the time of Elizabeth, and still belongs to his posterity.

STEPHEN HALES (1677-1761) English botanist and chemist, the 'father of  plant physiology',
born in Beaksbourn,Canterbury (Eng.). He entered Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, in 1696, was elected fellow in 1702, and became in 1709 perpetual curate of  Teddington.
His Vegetable Staticks (1727) was the foundation of vegetable physiology. In Haemastaticks (1733) he discussed the circulation of the blood and blood pressure. Besides a work on dissolving stones in the bladder, he wrote the Philosphical Transactions on ventilation, electricity, analysis of air, etc. He also invented machines for ventilating, distilling sea water, preserving meat, etc.

JOHN HALE(1723-1806)
Aide-de-Camp to General James Wolfe, Loiseburg Cape
Breton in 1758 and the plains of Abraham Quebec, 1759. He was given a warrant by King George the III to raise the 17th Dragoons, later 17th Lancers.

SIR DAVID DALRYMPLE HAILES (1726-92) Scottish jurist and historian, born in Edinburgh, a great grandson of the 1st Viscount Stair. He became a judge of the Court of Session in 1766 and a judge of the High Court of Session in 1766, but is best known for historical writings, the chronological Annals of Scotland (1776-79), still a valuable work.

WARREN STORMES HALE (1791 - 1872) Lord Mayor of London, descended from a family settled in Bennington, Hertfordshire, was born on 2 Feb. 1791. He was the first English manufacturer to utilise the valuable investigations made by MM. Chevereul and Lussac, the celebrated French chemists, in relation to animal and vegetable fatty acids in his business as a wax chandler. Elected to the common council in 1826 he was mainly instrumental in inducing the Corporation of the City of London to apply the bequest of John Carpenter (1370?-1441?) for the clothing and education of four poor boys, to the establishment of a large public day school. He was elected chairman of the committee which ran the school (the City of London School), an office which he retained to his death. He became Lord Mayor of London in 1864 and during his mayoralty raised a fund for the relief of Lancashire operatives who suffered from the cotton famine. He is buried at Highgate cemetary. A bust by Bacon and a portrait by Allen are at the City of London School.

You can read more about him HERE

MATTHEW BLAGDEN HALE was born in 1811 and died in April 1895. He was married twice, first to Sophia Clode and then to Sabina Molloy. He was ordained a deacon in Gloucester in June 1836 following his education at Cambridge University. From 1836-47 he served as a priest in the West Country of England in Tresham, Gloucestershire, Wotton under Edge, Stroud, Alderley and Atworth with Wraxall in Wiltshire. In 1847 he moved to Australia becoming Archdeacon of Adelaide from 1847-57. During the period 1850-57 he helped to found, and was Mission Superintendent of, the Native Institute, Poonindie, Southern Australia. He then became the first Bishop of Perth, Australia from 1857-75, and finally Bishop of Brisbane from 1875-85. On his return to England he retired in Clifton, Bristol.

The only HALE ever to win the VC - (the VICTORIA CROSS, Britains highest award for gallantry) was THOMAS EGERTON HALE, CB FRGS FRHS Assistant Surgeon in the 1Bn 7th Regiment. He won it on 8 September 1855 during an action in the Crimean war. Born in Faddiley near Nantwich, Cheshire on 24th September 1832 he died there on Christmas Day, 1909

SIR JOHN RIGBY HALE(1923-1999) British historian; chairman of National Gallery
1974-1980; wrote "The Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance" 1993.

REGINALD HALE (b. 1883) from Rodney Stoke in Somerset went down with the Titanic. He died April 15 1912. They found him and buried him at sea on April 24 1912.

Sailing Ship

Many descendants of early HALE immigrants to the United States made their mark on American society


NATHAN HALE (1755 - 76)

Probably the only HALE who is known to the majority of Americans Nathan Hale is regarded as a national hero, and as the 'Patron saint' of American espionage.
A graduate of Yale University he joined a Connecticut regiment in 1775, served in the Siege of Boston, and was commissioned as a captain in 1776. He volunteered to penetrate the British lines on Long island to procure intelligence for Washington.

While attempting to return to his regiment he was captured and hanged as a spy without trial the next day. He is supposed to have said before his death that his only regret was that he had but one life to lose for his country, a remark similar to one in Joseph Addison's play ' Cato'

His statue stands at the HQ of the CIA at Langley, Virginia.

NATHAN HALE(1784-1863) United States journalist and newspaper publisher.
Nephew of Nathan Hale, (above), he introduced the editorial as a newspaper feature.

SARAH JOSEPHA HALE (1788 - 1879)

American writer, born in Newport, New Hampshire. In 1828 she became the first female editor of a magazine, "The Ladies' Magazine." One of her important books is "The Ladies' Wreath", a collection of poetry by English and American women, which had a wide sale.

Her most significant work is "Woman's Record : Or, Sketches of all Distinguished Women from 'the Beginning' till AD 1850"

The 2,500 entries contain valuable, orderly biographical information. She is chiefly remembered as a proponent of the National Thanksgiving celebration, as the author of a novel "Northwood", and the children's nursery rhyme " Mary had a little lamb ", which appeared in her " Poems for Our Children " (1830).


HORATIO (EMMONS) HALE (b May 3, 1817 Newport, NH)
Anthropologist who made valuable liguistic and ethnographic studies of North American Indians.

In 1856 he entered legal practice at Clinton, Ontario and for the next twenty years was engaged primarily with his practice. In the late 1860's he began collecting traditional Iroquois literature from the Six Nations Reserve, Brantford, Ont.
Those collections are the basis of his major contribution to the literature of anthropology. His most important work, The Iroqois Book of Rites (1883), summarizes much of his research and reconstructs the later prehistory of the tribes of the Six Nations.

In the early 1880's he chose Franz Boas to conduct fieldwork among the Northwest Coast Indians for the British Association for the Advancement of Science. He not only provided Boas with material support but also corresponded with him regularly, offering guidelines and advice. Boas' ideas came to dominate U.S anthropology for about 50 years.

EDWARD EVERETT HALE (1822-1909) American Unitarian clergyman and writer,
born in Boston, Mass. where he became pastor of the South Congregational Church in 1856.

His ministry, which began in 1846, was characterized by his forceful personality, organizing genius, and liberal theology which placed him in the vanguard of the Social Gospel movement.

Many of his 150 books and pamphlets were tracts for such causes as the education of blacks, workmen's housing, and world peace, and his book Ten Times One is Ten (1870) inspired numerous 'Lend a Hand clubs'.
He edited religious and other journals, and documents on the founding of Virginia, and wrote short stories. The grand-nephew of Nathan Hale, in 1903 he was named chaplain of the United States Senate.

GEORGE ELLERY HALE (Jun 29 1868 - 1938)
George Ellery Hale earned fame for his brilliant research on sunspots and for his invention of the spectroheliograph. In 1892 he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago and began organising the Yerkes Observatory Wis., of which he was director until 1904. There he built the the 40-inch refracting telescope which remains the largest of it's type in the world.

He established the Astrophysical Journal in 1895.
In 1904 he organised the Mount Wilson Observatory near Los Angeles and was it's director until 1923.
There he built solar apparatus of great power as well as the huge 60-inch and 100-inch reflecting telescopes. In 1928 he began work on the giant reflecting telescope at Palomar Observatory in California which, having a dameter of 5m is second only to the 6m telescope in Zelenchkskaya, Russia.

The recipient of many honours, George Ellery Hale was also elected to most of the world's leading academies of science. He died on February 21 1938 in Pasadena, California.

ALAN HALE (1918 - 1990}
Born in Los Angeles, California, actor Alan Hale appeared in over two hundred movies.
He also played the Skipper in the TV series 'Gilligan's Island.'

Forum CONTENTS