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I.
326
Even on this wonderful day, sick though he \'las , he did not forget the
orphan children for whom he had felt so much sympathy all his life ;
though he \'las too ill to visit them himself, he deputed his daughters to
take them a gift of oranges , buns and lollies , together with a fare\.,rell
letter of blessing. 22
His life s 10\Y'ly drew to a close; each day the Mercury issued
a bulletin on his health; many \Y'ere the messages of sympathy and wishes
for his recovery. But such was not to be: on Saturday night , July 30 ,
just before midnight, in the seventy-seventh year of his age, in full
consciousness of unimpaired mental faculties , he died quietly sitting in
his chair in the presence of his family.
After a Requiem Mass at
St. Joseph 1 s Church, presided over by Bishop Murphy, he was buried at
Cornelian Bay Cemetery on August 2, 1881 . 2 3
The Obituary notice in the Mercury read:
Though to his family and intimate friends the end was not
unexpected, the intimation that Dr Hall died on Saturday
night, shortly before midnight \'I ill be received with regret
throughout the length and breadth of the colony. They who
knew him best \'li ll deplore the loss of one who \'las not only
an estimable private citizen ever going about doing good ,
but who as an officer, holding important pub lic positions
was painstaking, zealous and independent . They who knew him
only by report recognized him as a man \'lhom no influence or
inducement could trn from duty . In the discharge of
sometimes unpleasant work , because he had to keep up to the
mark those \'lhom he respected, and with \'lhom he \'las intimate
he \'las as stern and faithful as \'lith the meanest citi zens .
If ever anyone acted solely from a sense of duty, and \'las
uninfluenced by private or personal considerations , that man
was Dr E.S. Hal l. The consequence was that from the
knowledge of his sheer integrity of purpose he could carry
out changes from which anyone else \'lould have had to shrink,
and this, whether as a paid officer or a volunteer for it is
to his credit - though the fact is not so well knO\m as it
should have been - that whi le the depressed state of the
Public Treasury seemed to Parliament to necessitate his services
being dispensed with, he after\'lards continued as earnest and
zealous a guardian of the pub lic health, as when he had been
receiving a salary as a Government officer , and both the
Colonial and the Municipal authorities felt so strongly the
worth of his services, that they voted him a salary as soon as
their finances would afford it. That the recompense was not
equal to the \'lork \'las universely felt, and thus on the occasion
of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of his marriage, his
services received such a recognition from the pub lic as has been
accorded fe\'1 or none of Tasmania 1 s most gifted and valuable
2.2
2 3
Mercury, June 13, 1881.
Mercury, Aug. 13, 1881 .