J. R. Clark (John R. Clark) Hall

Born in Peckham in 1855, John Richard Clark Hall built an unusual career that combined law, public service, and medieval scholarship. In his working life he served at the Local Government Board in Whitehall, was admitted to Gray's Inn in 1881, and was called to the bar in 1896.

Alongside that career, he became a respected scholar of Old English. His A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, first published in 1894, became a widely used reference work and remained in print through later revised editions. He also published modern English translations of Beowulf, including both prose and verse versions.

Clark Hall died on August 6, 1931, in Eastbourne, East Sussex. No suitable confirmed portrait image was available from the page images I could verify, so a profile image is not included here.