Born in a Jewish household, Hall was the eldest son of an English dentist who practised in
Dublin and later became a portrait photographer in London, Hyman Davis (1824–1875), and his wife Isabella (1824–1900), whose maiden name was also Davis. The Davis family returned to London in the 1850s, Among his eight siblings were
Julia, a successful novelist under the name "Frank Danby", who married businessman
Arthur Frankau and was the mother of the author
Gilbert Frankau and the comedian
Ronald Frankau and grandmother of the novelist
Pamela Frankau and the actress
Rosemary Frankau;
Eliza, who was the journalist "Mrs. Aria" and long-time lover of the actor
Henry Irving; Harrie (1864–1920), who became a journalist in the US; and Florence ("Florette") a novelist who married
Marcus E. Collins, brother of
Arthur Collins, the manager of the
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. In the 1870s, Hall (still known as James Davis) married Esther Josephine (
née Da Costa Andrade, 1854–1946) and had three children, Isabelle Davis (1877–1935), Hyman Davis (1878–1950) and Dorothy Davis (1880–1963). Isabel married Gerald Benjamin, the son of mayor
Benjamin Benjamin of Melbourne, in 1912. Hyman married Helen Davis (so she didn't change surname) in 1914. Dorothy married a Belgian diplomat, Baron Marie-Georges-Gérard-Léon le Maire de Warzée d'Hermalle (1877–1931), and wrote of her travels in Persia,
Peeps into Persia (1913), under the name of Dorothy de Warzée.
Early career '' vocal score After practising from 1874 to 1886 as a solicitor, Hall gave up the law in favour of journalism, starting a newspaper called
Pan, which "went to popularity and thence through an inexperienced direction to death", after which he "owned and edited in turn
The Bat [1885–87],
The Cuckoo and
The Phoenix [after 1899], whilst writing industriously [and caustically] for
The Sporting Times many paragraphs on ... racing, and dramatic criticisms, under the signature 'Stalled Ox'." He was assistant editor of
Galignani's
Messenger from 1888 to 1890. Hall was, for a time, interested in politics and ran (unsuccessfully) against the
Liberal statesman
Charles Russell for the
Parliamentary seat of
Dundalk in the 1880 election. The change of career from critic to librettist came after he expressed a harsh view of a
George Edwardes production,
In Town (1892); the producer challenged Hall to do better. The result was the hit of the West End theatre season,
A Gaiety Girl (1893), with music by
Sidney Jones and lyrics by
Harry Greenbank. Hall's satirical book included lines that jabbed in the style of an upmarket gossip columnist. The smart society back-chat was very popular with audiences, and
A Gaiety Girl has a claim to being the first true musical comedy. Hall's next libretto was for ''
An Artist's Model'' (1895), another success for the same writing team. He repeated the snappy dialogue style of the previous work, but joined it with a romantic plot, which Hall added at the last minute after Edwardes hired the star
Marie Tempest, for whom Hall quickly wrote a new role. The result established the formula for two further extraordinary successes by Hall and his collaborators at
Daly's Theatre. The next collaboration for Hall, Jones and Greenbank was another popular work for Daly's,
A Greek Slave (1898). She wrote that, during his bankruptcy proceedings, Hall quipped
irreverently: "Now I know that my
Receiver liveth". His nephew Gilbert recalled that Hall said: "You can trust me with anything except a pretty girl or a
sovereign." Hall wrote several more works in the new century, including two more musicals for Davis:
The Silver Slipper (1901) with Stuart, and the unsuccessful
The Medal and the Maid (1903) with Jones. For Edwardes, he wrote "perhaps the most delightful of all his libretti" and his last big success,
The Girl from Kays (1902), and later
The Little Cherub (1906). A 1904 piece was
Sergeant Brue, written with
Liza Lehmann. ==Notes==