Hall Albert

Albert Hall

Born in Leicester in 1907, Albert Hall was educated at the former Milton Street Board School before starting a five-year apprenticeship with a local wood working firm. In the late 1920s, he managed get out of the slums in Fleet Street and to obtain a council house on the new South Braunstone estate.

 

He then became a leader in of the local tenants association and, during the 1930s, produced the `Braunstone Gazette’, which was distributed free to tenants on the estate, campaigning for local community facilities and lower rents.

 

Hall was an active anti-fascist during the 1930s and resigned from the Labour Party in protest over the party’s initial support for non-intervention in Spain. He was an active member of the Spanish Aid Committee and took in Czech refugees from the Sudetenland into his house.

 

Having joined the Communist Party he remained a member until he left in the wake of the events of 1956.  He was an organiser for the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers for 26 years and Trades Council President 1954 & 1970-1.

 

In the early 1960s, he lent his support to Arnold Wesker’s Centre 42 activities. This culminated in a successful arts festival sponsored by the Trades Council in 1962.

 

Hall died in January 1987.

 

Sources: Leicester Mercury, 25th August 1982, 12th January 1987, interview Leicester Oral History Archive,

http://www.nednewitt.webspace.virginmedia.com/whoswho/