Samuel Carter Hall

Samuel Carter Hall (9 May 1800 – 11 March 1889) was an Irish-born Victorian journalist who is best known for his editorship of The Art Journal and for his much-satirised personality.

His London-born father was Robert Hall (1753 – 10 January 1836), an army officer and, while in Ireland, engaged in working copper mines which ruined him.

Instead, he became a reporter and editor, including:[1] Between 1841 and 1843 he and his wife produced a three volume study of Ireland aimed at the English reader, focusing on the pace of social reform and the potential for economic development.

In 1839, Hodgson & Graves, print publishers, employed Hall to edit their new publication, Art Union Monthly Journal.

His wife, Anna Maria Fielding (1800–1881), became well known (publishing as "Mrs S.C. Hall"), for her numerous articles, novels, sketches of Irish life, and plays.

Hall's notoriously sanctimonious personality was often satirised, and he is regularly cited as the model for the character of Pecksniff in Charles Dickens's novel Martin Chuzzlewit.

Dickens, after all, missed some of the finer shades of the character; there can be little doubt that Hall was in his own private contemplation as shining an object of moral perfection as he portrayed himself before others.