Author: BALL, William
Biography:
BALL, William (1795-1846: J. Nogrette Ball)
Born at Taunton, Somerset, on 3 July 1795, he was the son of Benjamin Ball and his wife Sarah Herring. He was baptised on 5 Mar. 1798 in the Presbyterian Mary St. chapel in Taunton. Nothing is known about his early education but in 1826 he travelled to Italy where he taught languages. There on 10 July 1831 he married Julie Autran who came from a family of watchmakers in Geneva. She was born in Naples on 7 June 1808, the daughter of Louis Autran and his wife Jeanne Bry. In the early 1830s William and Julie Ball lived at 41 Vico S. Spirito in Naples. From that address on 24 Feb. 1832 Ball wrote to Walter Scott (q.v.)—then on a visit to Naples for his health—sending a copy of the manuscript of Night-Watches. Likely he hoped for Scott’s assistance in having the work published in Britain. The “Advertisement” to the published version indicates that the manuscript copy, sent by Scott to John Gibson Lockhart (q.v.), was misplaced owing to Scott’s death; it is preserved in the library at Abbotsford. Ball subsequently had the book published in Naples. Later in the 1830s the family moved to London where they are recorded as living at 28 Hanover Square in the 1841 Census. Two sons are listed in the Census: Benjamin (1833; he became an eminent French psychiatrist) and Charles (1839). A daughter, Amy, was born in 1843. Ball’s occupation is given as lock manufacturer. He had become a partner in the engineering and manufacturing firm of Bramah, Prestage, and Ball of 124 Piccadilly in about 1840. He contracted malaria and died on 1 July 1846 at Great Malvern—where, likely, he had been sent to be cured by Malvern’s spring waters. He was buried in West Norwood Cemetery, London. A publication not listed in the database is Freemen and Slaves, an Historical Tragedy (1838). (ancestry.co.uk 18 Jan. 2023; Evening Chronicle 13 July 1846; NLS MS. 869, ff. 191-92; Abbotsford Cata.; information from Joffrey Nogrette Ball) SR