Admiral Sir William Hutcheon Hall,, was a British Royal Navy officer. He served in the First Anglo-Chinese War and Crimean War. He was one of the first British officers to make a thorough study of steam engines. In China, he commanded the iron steamship Nemesis of the East India Company. Although it was not officially commissioned as a Royal Navy warship, the Admiralty enabled Hall to count his time in the Nemesis as if he had served in one of Her Majesty's Ships.

Nemesis was the first British ocean-going iron warship. She was the largest of a class of six similar vessels ordered by the 'Secret Committee' of the East India Company. Nemesis, together with her sister ships Phlegethon, Pluto, Proserpine, Ariadne, and Medusa, was built by John Laird's yard at Birkenhead and William Fairbairn & Sons at Millwall.