corporation from 1436 to 1440. John Halle is first mentioned in 1444 as a collector of a subsidy. He was admitted member of the common council in 1446, became alderman in 1448, and was constable of New Street ward in 1449. He was elected mayor in 1451, 1458, 1464, and 1465, and represented the city in the parliaments of 1453, 1460, and 1461. In 1465 the corporation became involved in a quarrel with Richard de Beauchamp [q. v.], bishop of Salisbury, and Halle, taking an active part in it, was imprisoned in London, and the corporation were ordered to elect a new mayor, which they refused to do. Halle was eventually released, and the dispute with the bishop was arranged. In 1470 Halle found forty men on behalf of the city to accompany Warwick the kingmaker for a payment of forty marks. Aubrey says that ‘as Greville and Wenman bought all the Coteswolde, soe did Halle and Webb all the wooll of Salisbury plaines.’ He was a merchant of the staple, and apparently acquired considerable wealth. In 1467 he purchased a site in the street now called the New Canal, where shortly after he built a residence, the hall of which still remains. Until early in this century it was partitioned into rooms, but was then restored. The old stained glass remains in the windows, and Halle's arms and merchant's mark appear in them and on the chimney-piece. Halle died on 14 Oct. 1479, at which time he held property at Salisbury and at Shipton Bellinger in Hampshire (‘Inquisitiones post mortem,’ in appendix to Duke, Prolusiones). He was apparently married to Joan Halle, and had a son William, who was attainted in 1483 for taking part in Buckingham's rising. This sentence was reversed in 1485 (Rot. Parl. vi. 246, 273). William Halle's daughter and heiress married Sir Thomas Wriothesley, Garter king-at-arms in the reign of Henry VII. John Halle had also a daughter Chrystian, who married Sir Thomas Hungerford, son of Sir Edmund Hungerford, and grandson of Walter, lord Hungerford [q. v.]
[Duke's Prolusiones Historicæ; or Essays illustrative of the Halle of John Hall, &c. vol. i. (no more published); Gent. Mag. 1837, pt. i. 172; Hatcher's Old and New Sarum in Sir R. C. Hoare's Modern Wiltshire.]
HALLETT or HALLET, JOSEPH, I (1628?–1689), ejected minister, was born at Bridport, Dorsetshire, about 1628. He became by his own exertions a good Greek scholar and proficient in Hebrew. In 1652 he was ‘called to the work of the ministry’ at Hinton St. George, Somersetshire, a sequestered living, and was ordained to this charge on 28 Oct. 1652 in St. Thomas's Church, Salisbury, by the ‘classical presbytery of Sarum.’ His ordination certificate describes him as a ‘student in divinity,’ of ‘competent age’ (twenty-four years). From Hinton in 1656 he was promoted to the rectory of Chiselborough with West Chinnock, Somersetshire, also a sequestered living, which he held until the Restoration. Calamy says he held it until the Uniformity Act (1662), but Walker states, and the rate-books prove, that the sequestered rector, Thomas Gauler, was restored ‘with his majesty.’ Hallett retired to Bridport, living there with his father-in-law till he settled at Bradpole, Dorsetshire, where he kept a conventicle.
On the indulgence of 1672 Hallett was called to Exeter by the presbyterians there, but after the revocation of the indulgence in the following year he was brought up, June 1673, at the Guildhall, Exeter, for preaching to some two hundred persons in the house of one Palmer, and fined 20l. He continued to preach, and was twice imprisoned in the South Gate, the second occasion being in 1685. James II's declaration for liberty of conscience (1687), although Hallett refused to read in public, enabled the Exeter presbyterians to build a meeting-house (known as James' Meeting), of which Hallett was the first minister. It was this meeting-house to which, when William of Orange entered Exeter in November 1688, access was obtained by Robert Ferguson (d. 1714) [q. v.]
Hallett's health was shattered by his imprisonments. He died on 14 March 1689. By his wife Elizabeth he had two daughters, Elizabeth (b. 21 Feb. 1658) and Mary (b. 15 Oct. 1659), and a son, Joseph [q. v.] His funeral sermon was preached by his successor, George Trosse. The publications ascribed to him by Calamy appear to belong to his son.
[Calamy's Account, 1713, p. 269; Calamy's Continuation, 1727, p. 427; Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, 1714, ii. 254; Funeral Sermon for Trosse, 1713, p. 31; Life of Trosse, 1714, p. 95; Life of Trosse (Gilling), 1715, p. 35; Murch's Hist. Presb. and Gen. Bapt. Churches in West of Engl., 1835, pp. 376 sq.; information from the Rev. C. F. Newell, Chiselborough.]
HALLETT or HALLET, JOSEPH, II (1656–1722), nonconformist minister, son of Joseph Hallett (1628?–1689) [q. v.], was born and baptised on 4 Nov. 1656. He was probably educated by his father, was ordained in 1683, and on the erection of James' Meeting (1687) was appointed his father's assistant. He retained a similar office under George Trosse, his father's successor, and on Trosse's death (11 Jan. 1713) became pastor. Towards the end of the year James Peirce [q. v.] became his colleague.
