[2] His work was admired by Philip Larkin who described it as, "just the sort of thing I should like to have done myself" and by W. H. Auden who wrote "in the poems of J. C. Hall we see a craftsmanship that yields to the reader constant pleasure and enjoyment.
"[3] A Trevor Tolley judged "his work has a carefulness that makes one ready to accept his small output as a mark of spiritual and poetic integrity".
[4] Born in Ealing, London and brought up in Tunbridge Wells,[5] Hall attended Leighton Park School and Oriel College, Oxford.
[6] He was an editor of the literary periodical Fords and Bridges at Oxford and became good friends with Keith Douglas.
[6] As a pacifist he did farm work during the war and when Douglas was killed in Normandy, Hall was named as his literary executor.