He began working as a "trimmer", transporting materials, at Wombwell Main, then returned to Cortonwood when it re-opened, becoming a collier at the age of twenty.
He was influenced by David Lloyd George's speech urging increases in production and led attempts to achieve this at his pit during World War I.
In 1925, he gave up his local posts to become full-time financial secretary of the YMA, and from 1930 also served on the executive of the Miners Federation of Great Britain, where he was known for occupying a middle position between communists and right-wingers.
[1] Hall was appointed by the Trades Union Congress as its delegate to the American Federation of Labour for 1932/33, and he took advantage of the opportunity to tour the United States; among other engagements, he spoke alongside F. D. Roosevelt.
Back in the UK, he was one of the strongest opponents of George Alfred Spencer's Nottinghamshire Miners' Industrial Union, and his increased prominent led him to election as president of the YMA in 1939, following the death of Herbert Smith.