Category: Trade: Paint and Varnish

John W. Hall – Pioneer Of The Tariff Reform Movement In The West Of England

John W. Hall, born 14th June 1830, was a native of Chesterfield, Derbyshire. He was educated at Chesterfield Grammar School and came to Warminster in 1858. He married Sarah Harris, the eldest daughter of Thomas Harris, a well-known Warminster man who had business connections with Bristol.

Mr. Hall immediately went into partnership with a Mr. Thomas Hazell Reynolds, manufacturing horse nails and dealing in wholesale ironmongery goods. Hall took sole control of the business in 1860, trading in Warminster at Back Street (since renamed Emwell Street) and later in the Market Place. He began to manufacture paint and varnishes with great success, and John Hall & Co.’s Wiltshire White Lead And Paint Works, at Weymouth Street, Warminster, which were built in 1876, became one of the largest industrial concerns in the town by 1900.

John Hall had a marvellous intellect and often set his friends mathematical posers, the answers to which he had worked out mentally himself. He often set his teasers in the local newspapers.

John Hall became well-known as the pioneer of the Tariff Reform Movement in the West of England (in which he was assisted by the Warminster-based agricultural engineer John Wallis Titt). John Hall’s first public advocacy of the cause in Warminster was at a meeting of the Young Men’s Debating Society at the Common Close Lecture Hall.

In 1886 he founded the Warminster And District Fair Trade League and played a leading part in establishing the head office in London of the National Fair Trade League. He wrote many letters to the press on the subject of fair trade and tariff reforms, and was a regular contributor to The Morning Post, The Daily Express, and The Sheffield Daily Telegraph. He published many pamphlets, the two best known being The Curse Of Cobden and Free Food Dumpers And Their Victims. His last public speaking engagement was in August 1908 at an open-air entertainment at Heytesbury Park, about three miles east of Warminster, in connection with the Women’s Tariff Reform League.

John Hall suffered for years with bronchitis, but was taken seriously ill with heart trouble on Easter Day 1909. He died, within weeks of his 80th birthday, at his home, Town Hall House, at High Street, Warminster, on the evening of Wednesday 26th May 1909. His funeral was held at the Parish Church of St Denys, the Minster, Warminster, on the following Saturday afternoon.

John Hall’s wife, Sarah, predeceased him in 1888. The couple had seven children

John Hall had been a founder member of the Longleat Lodge of Freemasons. He was also a Primo of the Royal Ancient Order of Buffaloes in Warminster and was an honorary member of the Ark Lodge of Oddfellows and the Jubilee Lodge of Shepherds. He had also served as a vice-president of the Ratepayers’ Association.

A memorial fund for John Hall was set up by the Warminster Tariff Reform League but the Warminster Urban District Council found it difficult to decide how and where to commemorate the lifework of Mr Hall. Proposals included the erection of a column in the centre of the High Street, outside Hall’s former home; a plaque on his house; or a clock attached to the Obelisk at the western end of Silver Street, Warminster. The delay caused by the lengthy debates of Council members, some of whom were not in accord with Mr Hall’s ideals, proved too much for some of the subscribers and the organisers of the fund. Mr Hall’s family finally requested in July 1911 that a clock and plaque be erected on the Conservative Club building at Silver Street, Warminster. This was done, and the clock and two plaques were officially unveiled on 31st May 1913 by the Rt. Hon. Walter Long, M.P.

The building housing the Conservative Club, which was situated opposite the entrance to Ash Walk, had previously been a pub called the New Inn (and had been known as the Admiral Vernon before that). It is currently [up until 2009] used by Obelisk Antiques. When the Conservative Club moved to Church Street, Warminster, in 1930, the clock and the two accompanying commemorative plaques, which each measure about one foot high by two feet wide, were also transferred.

The top plaque reads:

“This memorial was unveiled by the Rt. Hon. Walter H. Long, M.P., and presented on behalf of the Memorial Fund subscribers by the Warminster Tariff Reform League to the Conservative Club, Warminster.”

The other plaque reads:

“This clock is erected as memorial of the life work of John W. Hall of this town. Born 1830. Died 1909. He was the pioneer of the Tariff Reform movement in the West of England and he also played a leading part in its advocacy throughout the country consistently supporting it for nearly half a century. It is also a mark of the admiration & respect in which his memory is held by his numerous friends & fellow workers throughout the Empire. A.D. 1913.”

The Conservative Club moved again, in October 1968, to Prestbury House, at Boreham Road, Warminster, but the clock and the plaques remained in situ at Church Street.

John Hall’s Paint And Varnish Works, Warminster

Extract from The Changing Face Of Warminster by Wilfred Middlebrook, published in 1971:

One of the oldest businesses in Warminster was the paint and varnish works of John Hall And Company, founded in 1830. ‘Moonraker’ paints were well-known over the whole of southern and central England, this being Wiltshire’s only paint works. Their address was simply “Wiltshire Mills, Weymouth Street.”

John Hall became a partner with a thriving industrialist called Reynolds, starting the paint and varnish business in 1830, and three of Hall’s sons gave a lifetime’s work to the development and expansion of the firm; with grandsons working too – three generations were thus employed in what was truly a family business. Where other old-established paint firms were absorbed in larger concerns, thus losing their identity, the firm of John Hall And Co. prided itself on keeping the business in the family, with grandsons of the founder doing business with the grandsons of the firm’s first customers.

One of the pioneers of the Tariff Reform Movement, John Hall’s work in this direction is commemorated by the clock that adorns what used to be the Conservative Club in Church Street. The eldest son of John Hall, Mr. Alfred Hall, who died in 1952, in his eightieth year, was the managing director of the firm for many years and travelled through many countries visiting customers in towns and villages, making personal contacts that did much to build up the business. Soon after the last war, with his co-directors, “Mr. Alfred” acquired the Standard Paint And Varnish Company in London, thus widening the firm’s scope. He was also instrumental in obtaining a second cinema for Warminster, with the erection of the Regal in 1935. He also took a keen interest in housing matters with the erection of Hall’s Terrace between the Paint Works and the cinema in 1921.

Conveyance And Site Plan Of The Minster Hall At Church Street, Warminster

A Conveyance, with site plan, from the incumbent to the Salisbury Diocesan Board of Finance in trust for the P.C.C. of the site of the parochial Minster Hall in Church Street, Warminster, can be found in the archives at the Wiltshire And Swindon History Centre at Cocklebury Road, Chippenham, Wiltshire, SN15 2QN. It is dated 1922. The description states: In 1930 the Hall was sold to Messrs. John Hall & Co., of Warminster, and removed from the site. Included, constitution for the management of the Hall. The reference number is PR/Warminster, St. Denys with St. Lawrence/2144/102..

The Wiltshire White Lead And Paint Mills, Weymouth Street, Warminster

From The Pictorial Record Volume III, No.26, September 1900:

One of the biggest industrial enterprises in Warminster is that now, and for the past 40 years, carried on by the firm of Messrs. John Hall & Co., first as nail makers, and for 12 years as Paint and Lead Manufacturers.

When Mr Hall first took over the business it was nothing like in extent what it is now, the premises including over 20 show and store rooms besides kilns, grinding mills, and other departments necessary to the work. The firm are manufacturers of paints, white leads, putty, enamels, sanitary distemper paints, patent driers, colours and stains, and in oil, water, or varnish, lubricating oils and greases. They also deal in hardwares, locks, latches, bars, bolts, pulleys, nails, screws, hinges, glass paper and sash line, coffin furniture and inside trimmings, cement, plaster, size, felt, glass, paint brushes, sash tools, painters’ sundries, &c., &c. Almost everything, in fact, in the way of estate and builders’ sundries is supplied, and one would go far to find a larger, better, or more comprehensive stock, which must be of immense convenience to estate owners, builders and contractors in a country district such as this is.

The premises have large yard as well as storage space, and the newest grinding machinery, &c. is thoroughly up to date and equal to turning out goods of the best quality. Price lists of the various articles made and sold are issued, which give most comprehensive information regarding price, size, &c., and these we recommend to all by whom such goods as we have mentioned above are required. When Messrs. Hall and Co. were merchants of paint only, and not manufacturers, complaints as to quality were frequent, and analysis revealed the fact that it was mainly due to the cheap German and other foreign lead and substitutes used; to avoid this the firm built a factory and began to manufacture for themselves, the primary objects being to secure reliable quality, and to use nothing but British products where possible, without detriment to quality.

These aims are being strictly adhered to, and – other things being equal – British productions always secure the preference. Mention of this during our interview with Mr Hall led to a very interesting dissertation from him on a subject in which he is keenly interested, and which he has advocated ever since 1860, viz., fair trade.