Obituary: John Hall

29th January 2026

John Henry Hall died on 29th January 2026.  He joined BFES in 1967 and was teacher and head in the far East and Germany. 

His daughter Su writes that John joined BFES in 1967 as a teacher and taught in several places until he left in 1981 to take up a headship in London.  His tours started as head of English at Wessex Junior School (Singapore 1967-69), then on to become Head at Sungei Patani, Malaya (1970-71), then Head of Maths and Science at Mongomery Primary School (Hohne, 1971-73), after which he ran the Teacher Centre in Werl, (1973-6) and then became the first Head of Slim Primary School, (Hohne 1977-81). 

Su recounts in her eulogy given at John's funeral that having a difficult childhood as the child of a broken family and being sent to boarding school meant that he grew up with strong beliefs about the importance of close family ties, and understood the need to reach out the hand of friendship to help others. He always found time to make people feel appreciated and noticed, for example, by always using their name and in other small, quiet gestures showing that he cared about them as individuals. 

In the 1960s both John and Jacky found Quakerism and he became a lifelong attender of meetings for over 60 years and a scholar of Quaker history.  His beliefs led him to live his life as best he could every minute of every day and to do the best he could to quietly support others and do good in the community. John seems to have discovered his ability to teach during his National Service where within a year he was employed training other recruits in the Royal Army Medical Corps.  He gave up a promising career as a Manager at Littlewoods to attend Teacher Training College, ultimately leading his family on an amazing adventure with him around the world.

Taking early retirement he went back to University to study the History of Art and Medieval Studies. This led to his amazing project, "Britain Quaker Meeting Houses", the only complete photographic record of all remaining 561 meeting houses in the country. 

He will be sadly missed by his family and friends but his kindness and goodwill to others lives on in their memories.

His wife Jacky, died in 2001. 

There is a muchloved site dedicated to John at https://john-hall-1936-2026.muchloved.com/

And you can see a map of the places John travelled to at https://goplg.short.gy/journey-map