Albert Francis Hall
Albert Francis Hall (1845-1907)
1908 Obituary [1]
ALBERT FRANCIY HALL was born at Somerville, Massachusetts, on the 6th December, 1845, and after attending school at Charlestown, he joined the first class to be formed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and graduated in Science in 1868.
He then entered the employment of the George F. Blake Manufacturing Company, of Boston, with whom he remained until his death, a period of 40 years. As chief draughtsman to the company, he designed all their pumping machinery for waterworks and other purposes, amongst the largest of these engines in use in America being the 20-million-gallon triple-expansion pumps built for the high service stations of the New York City Waterworks. To his fertile resource and inventive ability, applied to the solution of difficult mechanical problems, many valuable improvements in modern pumping machinery are due, one of his latest inventions being the "Simplex " valve-gear.
Mr. Hall was one of the first to advocate the heat-unit method of calculating the efficiency of the steam-engine, and read a Paper on this subject before the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1894. He also made other valuable contributions to technical literature, especially on the theory and application of the centrifugal pump. In his leisure moments he devoted himself to photography and to penmanship, attaining considerable practical skill in the latter art.
He was a Member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, as well as of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Mr. Hall died at Somerville on the 22nd July, 1907, aged 61.
He was elected an Associate Member of The Institution on the 5th March, 1889.