Biography

Horticulturalist and succulent plant authority. Harry Hall, who was born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, trained in horticulture at a variety of institutions before enrolling in the horticultural course at Kew. He developed his interest in succulents while on exchange to the Hanbury Botanical Garden, La Mortola, Italy, and on his return to Kew asked to be put in charge of the cactus and succulent collection. After completing his course, he won an appointment as curator of the Darrah Collection at Alexandra Park, Manchester. With the exception of four years' service in the RAF during the Second World War, he remained at Alexandra Park until 1947 during which time he added some 600 species of mostly South African succulents to the collection. After the war, having decided to live in a place where succulents grow wild, he wrote to Professor R.H. Compton at Kirstenbosch to enquire about his prospects of working there. Compton replied that the garden as yet had no succulent section but that he would willingly create a post should Hall wish to join the staff. On his arrival in August 1947 Hall found the succulents at Kirstenbosch in a sad state; over the next two decades he built up the collection virtually from scratch and also brought order to the rockery and spring flowers section of the garden.

The first time Hall ever saw succulents in their wild state was on a trip to Namaqualand in 1948, which he made with Compton and Dr G.W. Reynolds, who was photographing aloes for his book The Aloes of South Africa (1950). During this journey (recounted in the March 1950 issue of the National Cactus & Succulent Journal), he made his first discovery, a previously unknown Trichodiadema, later named Trichodiadema hallii L. Bolus. Hall tended to look for plants in remote areas and kept meticulous records of all his collecting trips. Between 1947 and 1968, he undertook 140 journeys, short and long, covering almost the entirety of southern Africa, most of which he made on his leave and at his own expense. He also made several expeditions to Zimbabwe and Namibia in the 1950s with Bernard Carp, an adventurer, hunter and collector of Dutch origin, based in Cape Town.

Athough officially retired in 1968, he continued as an honorary staff member at Kirstenbosch with the title of Plant Collector. In 1964, following the death of his first wife, Wyn, in a motor accident, he married Lisabel Booysen, who had joined the herbarium as a plant taxonomist the previous year. He and Lisabel worked together as a team and always kept a plant press in the boot of their car. After his retirement they travelled widely in southern Africa and abroad, and accompanied many overseas guests from England, America, Germany, and Sweden on collecting trips.

Hall was elected to the International Organisation of Succulent Plant Study in 1953 and was a fellow of the Cactus and Succulent Society of America from 1981. He wrote more than 80 articles on succulents and horticulture as well as the Longman field book Common Succulents (1953). His collection of nearly 5000 herbarium specimens contains 137 new species, most of them succulents, 30 of which have been named after him, including Lithops hallii de Boer, which he discovered on a trip to the Kuruman district with Edmund Schelpe. There is also a species of beetle, which he collected in Kaokoveld, named Rozonia halli in his honour. His favourite succulent group was the Mesembryanthemaceae, especially the genera Lithops and Conophytum. He discovered 33 new species and varieties of the genus Conophytum alone, including Conophytum intrepidum L. Bolus, which occurs on sheer rock faces of the Augrabies Mountains, and describes the intrepid nature of this collector.

Sources:
Cactus and Succulent Journal, 58: 95-101, 146-7, 256-262
Lisabel Hall, Personal communication.