HALL, URBAN [SSNE 394]
Text source
Urban Hall was an Englishman active in the Swedish iron trade in the second half of the seventeenth century. His name appeared in the Stockholm weigh-books in 1668 when he registered over 900 shippounds' worth of iron.
Along with Sir William Blackett, 1st Baron Newcastle, he petitioned Secretary of State, Sir Henry Coventry to encourage Swedish envoy to Britain, Pehr Sparre to delay the implementation of the Swedish Edict of 1672. The Edict was to place more stringent restrictions on foreign merchants operating out of Sweden
Hall was one of several English commissioners who worked out of Stockholm at the time and appears to have been a temporary industrial migrant to Sweden as he returned to London and in 1679 became a member of the Eastland Company. He was one of London's five major Baltic merchants in the 1680s dealing particularly with Swedish imports of staple commodities.
L. Müller, The Merchant Houses of Stockholm c., 1640-1800, (Uppsala, 1998), p.89; Åström, Sven-Erik, From Stockholm to St Petersburg: Commercial Factors in the Political Relations between England and Sweden, 1675-1700, Finnish Historical Society, Helsinki, 1962, p. 60. This record was kindly updated by Adam Grimshaw.
Service record
- SWEDEN, STOCKHOLM
- Arrived 1668-01-01
- Departed 1678-12-31
- Capacity IRON EXPORTER, purpose MERCANTILE, TRADE, COMMERCE
- ENGLAND, LONDON, EASTLAND COMPANY
- Arrived 1679-01-01
- Departed 1689-12-31
- Capacity BALTIC TRADE MERCHANT, purpose MERCANTILE, TRADE, COMMERCE