Indian Rebellion William Nelson Edward Hall[note 1] VC (28 April 1827 – 27 August 1904) was the first Black person, first Nova Scotian, and the third Canadian to receive the Victoria Cross due to his actions in the 1857 Siege of Lucknow.

Hall and an officer from his ship continued to load and fire a 24-pounder gun at the walls of the Shah Nujeef mosque after the rest of the party had been killed or injured by the local resistance hoping to secure the restoration of Mughal suzerainty.

[2] The Halls first lived in Summerville, Nova Scotia, where Jacob worked in a shipyard operated by Abraham Cunard until they bought a farm across the Avon River at Horton Bluff.

He served for a time aboard USS Ohio alongside John Taylor Wood, who later supported Hall's US Navy pension claim.

[8] The gun crews kept up a steady fire in an attempt to breach and clear the walls, while a hail of musket balls and grenades from the opposing fighters inside the mosque caused heavy casualties.

Of the crews, only Able Seaman Hall and Lieutenant Thomas James Young, the battery's commander, were able to continue fighting, all the rest having been killed or wounded, and between them they loaded and served the last gun, which was fired at less than 20 yards (18 m) from the wall, until it was breached.

Hall's original Victoria Cross was repatriated from Britain in 1967 by the government of Nova Scotia and is on permanent display at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax.

[14] The fourth ship in the Royal Canadian Navy's Harry DeWolf class was officially named HMCS William Hall in a ceremony at Irving Shipbuilding's yard in Halifax on 28 April 2023.