Two attractive arched-windows below a circular window featuring a Paschal Lamb, on the south side of the Church dedicate to the memory of John Cecil Hall former Rector at St. Andrew. From inside the Church at the foot of the windows in black-lettering is the following dedication:
J C HALL RECTOR – OBIIT A D 1844
John Cecil Hall: 1804-1844
John Cecil’s obituary appeared in The Christian’s Monthly Magazine and Universal Review Vol. I. January to June (1844):
“On the 8th ult., [ in or of the month preceding the current one] at the Rectory-house, the Rev. and Ven. John Cecil Hall, B.C.L [Bachelor of Civil Law], Rector of Kirk Andreas, and Archdeacon of Sodor and Man.”
His obituary in The Gentleman’s Magazine Volume 21; Volume 175 gives more detail:
“Feb. 8. At Kirk Andreas rectory, Isle of Man, the Ven. John Cecil Hall, B.C.L. Archdeacon of that island, and Rector of Kirk Andreas, He was the youngest son of the late Very Rev. Charles Hall, D.D. [Doctor of Divinity] Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, by the Hon. Anna Maria Bridget Byng [Fanny], aunt to the present Viscount Torrington. He was a student of Christ Church and was presented in 1832 by the Lord Chancellor to the rectory of Great Cressingham with Bodney, Norfolk. In 1839 [19 September], he was appointed Archdeacon of Man and Rector of Kirk Andreas. The Archdeacon was a man of lively and engaging manners, an amiable and sincere Christian, and may be considered to have been successful in life, having been honoured with the regard of Lords Melbourne, Russell, Brougham and Lyndhurst [leading Whig politicians in the U.K. parliament of the time]. A In politics he was a moderate Whig; his religious views a consistent churchman. The cause of his death was typhus fever, caught from a sick parishioner, while in conscientious discharge of his pastoral engagements. It is singular that the author of “The Primitive Church in its Episcopacy” &c. should have just mentioned, in a note attached to his work, this praise of the Manx clergy: - “The clergy of the Isle of Man are an excellent specimen of what Christian ministers should be. A Man friend writes, ‘Typhus fever has been raging here for the last month, and many among the lower orders have fallen victims to the malady. I am happy to say that... (naming a clergyman) has acted a most praiseworthy part in visiting them when alive; and, after the vital spark had flown, he actually put them into the coffin!” And then others of the clergy are named, together with the Bishop and Archdeacon Hall. Alas! Before this book was many days before the public, this esteemed Archdeacon had fallen a sacrifice to the conscientious zeal with which he performed his clerical obligations. The excellent Bishop of the diocese (Dr Short) with conduct worthy of the author of “What is Christianity?” shrunk not from his imperative duty also, and on the Wednesday before his death, was praying by the bed-side of the lamented Archdeacon. Mr Hall married Feb. 8. 1832, Frances Amelia elder daughter of the Hon. John Wingfield Stratford, and cousin to Viscount Powerscourt.
John Cecil on arriving in Andreas found the rectory house to be in poor condition and spent a considerable sum restoring the property; by an Act of Tynwald, 20 December 1840, he ‘was enabled to mortgage the glebe lands to the extent of £700. To pay the annual interest of the same, and one-thirtieth part of the principal money borrowed annually, to be a charge on the living. – Gell’s Statute, pp. 60-66’.
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