John Hall (British Army officer)

Sir John Hall KCB (1795 in Little Beck, Westmorland – 17 January 1866 in Pisa) was a British military surgeon.

In that role he came into contact and conflict with Florence Nightingale (whom he called in his letters a "petticoat imperieuse"), though he fully welcomed the help offered by Mary Seacole.

Though his actions in the Crimea led to his being mentioned in dispatches, becoming a KCB and officer of the Légion d'honneur, and receiving the third class of the Turkish order of the Mejidiye, he also faced criticism for them.

Nightingale, who acknowledged his efficiency and ability but regarded him as a wily opponent to her nursing experiment, referred to him as "Knight of the Crimean Burying-Grounds.

"[2] The ‘Observations on the Report of the Sanitary Commission despatched to the Seat of the War in the East,’ that he published in 1857 brought him into conflict with John Sutherland and Nightingale, since (with one other pamphlet by Hall) they were intended to rebut her criticisms of his organisation of the army hospitals.