Benjamin Hall, 1st Baron Llanover

Benjamin Hall, Baron Llanover (8 November 1802 – 27 April 1867) was a Whig / Liberal politician and social, church, health and local government reformer who served in the House of Commons from 1831 until his elevation to the peerage in 1859. As President of the Board of Health from 1854-1855 he was a minister in the Cabinet and thereafter occupied the non-Cabinet position of First Commissioner of Public Works until 1858. In 1859 he was made a Peer as Lord Llanover of Llanover and Abercarn and served in the House of Lords until his death in 1867. He was a Minister under Lords Aberdeen and Palmerston and was a member of the Privy Council.

He was a prominent reformer whose primary focus in parliamentary debates was on church reform, local government and sanitation. He was the United Kingdom's first Minister of Health, playing an import role in the development of modern systems for the management of health and sanitation in London and later, as First Commissioner for Works, established the Metropolitan Board of Works, the first metropolis-wide government for London. He also oversaw the completion of the new Houses of Parliament and is today chiefly remembered as the person after whom Big Ben, the largest bell in its Elizabeth Tower, is named.