The Criminal Career of Archibald Hall
A very dangerous man to know
Archibald Hall, born in 1924, was the son of a Glasgow post-office clerk. Having spent his entire criminal career as a resourceful, but relatively harmless, fraudster, he suddenly, and with a variety of blunt instruments, killed five people in as many months, including his brother.
Signs of mental instability may have been evident in his boyhood liking for dressing up as his sister, Violet. At the age of 16 he lost his virginity to an older woman, who took him to expensive hotels for meals, thereby instilling an enduring taste for unearned luxury.
His parents noticed that he seemed suddenly to have a great deal of money after he became devoted to an old lady in a neighboring flat. When she died, thousands of pounds in cash were found in a trunk. Hall, who had made this discovery already, may have regretted not taking all of it — perhaps determining not to make this mistake again.
In 1941 Hall’s mother gave birth to another son, Donald, whom Archibald always disliked. Donald also became a criminal, though entirely lacking his brother’s audacity and style.
Fraud and Theft
In August 1941, at the age of 17, Archibald Hall was imprisoned for theft. In 1943, he received another sentence for…
