SIR BENJAMIN HALL AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF LONDON By MAXWELL FRASER THE General Board of Health, which had survived under bitter attacks and constant criticism since it had been set up in 1848, was to be extinguished finally on 12 August 1854, and on 6 August the Prime Minister, Lord Aberdeen, sent for Sir Benjamin HalP to offer him his first administrative post, as President of the reconstructed Board of Health. Three days later, a letter was addressed to Sir Benjamin on behalf of his constituents in the Borough of St. Marylebone, congratulating him, and telling him that his acceptance of office has given general satisfaction in the Borough. Every person who takes an interest in the affairs of the parish approves of your doing so, and say [sic] that the Government have paid the Borough a compliment in having selected one of their members: at the same time, they think that something better should have been offered to you. Nicholay will move a vote of thanks in the Vestry on Saturday on which occasion he will refer to the appoint- ment in terms of approbation Well might the Vestry be pleased. It was the final triumph of the Vestrymen of the Metropolis over the efforts of Edwin Chadwick5 and his friends to transfer the power of the Vestries to a centralized government department. Sir Benjamin and his fellow member of Marylebone, Lord Dudley Stuart,6 had been Gordon George Hamilton, 4th Earl of Aberdeen (1784-1860). 2 Benjamin Hall (1802-67), eldest son of Benjamin Hall, M.P. (1778- 1817) and his wife, Charlotte Crawshay (1782-1839). He married Augusta Waddington of Llanover, 4 December 1823; was M.P. for the Monmouth Boroughs, 1831-37; M.P. for the Borough of St. Marylebone, 1837-59. Created a baronet, 1838; Privy Councillor, 1854: raised to the peerage as Baron Llanover of Llanover and Abercarn, 1859. For full details of the ancestry of Benjamin Hall and Augusta Waddington, see the present writer's "The Halls of Pembrokeshire". National Library of Wales Journal, XII (1961), pp. 1-17, and "The Waddingtons of Llanover, 1791- 1805", N.L.W. Journal, XI (1960), and John P. Addis The Crawshay Dynasty (University of Wales Press, 1957). 3 Llanover papers. I am indebted to the Hon. Mrs. Fflorens Roch of Llanarth for permission to quote from the Llanover papers in her possession. Ibid. Sir Edwin Chadwick (1800-1890). 'Lord Dudley Coutts Stuart (1803-54).