Hall, Archibald, 1812-1868

Archibald Hall was a medical doctor who lived in Montreal. He was born on 8 November 1812 in Montreal, son of Jacob Hall and Rebecca Ferguson Hall. He was educated at the Royal Grammar School of Montreal, and in 1828 began an apprenticeship in medicine with Dr William Robertson at Montreal General Hospital. He was formally educated in medicine at McGill College and the University of Edinburgh, graduating with a doctorate of medicine in 1834. Archibald was appointed to the faculty of McGill in 1835, and taught topics including materia medica, chemistry, midwifery, and obstetrics. He was also very involved in medical writing and publishing, launching the British American Journal of Medical and Physical Science in 1845. He also had an active interest in natural history, writing his doctoral thesis on medicinal uses of plants for the respiratory system, and winning the silver medal from the Natural History Society of Montreal for a memoir on the mammals and birds of Montreal. He married Agnes Burgess of Scotland on 17 May 1838. They had three children together, Rebecca, Agnes, and James Burgess. Agnes died in 1843, and Archibald married Caroline Wurtele on 4 November 1846. Caroline died in 1857, and Archibald died on 14 February 1868.

Dates of existence and biographical information based on the contents of the fonds and its acquisition file, a birth record, marriage records, burial records, the 1861 Census of Canada, and an entry in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography: http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/hall_archibald_9E.html.