Author: Ballard, Edward George
Biography:
BALLARD, Edward George (1791-1860: ODNB)
The son of Edward Ballard (d 1827) and his wife Elizabeth Benson (d 1809), he was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, on 29 Apr. 1791. He was baptised at St. Edmund’s, Salisbury, on 22 Oct. 1795. The family was affluent and his father had become a Salisbury councilman in 1784 and was elected alderman in 1799. Edward George Ballard suffered from poor health as a child and received only limited education in Salisbury and, later, in Pimlico, London, where the family moved after 1804 when his father suffered financial difficulties. From 1809 he worked first for the Stamp office and then the Excise office but left employment in 1817 to study. He married Mary Ann Shadgett (d 1840) at St. Mary’s, Islington, on 8 Oct. 1818; they had a son, Edward, and a daughter, Maria Ann. In 1818 he applied for a ticket to the British Museum reading room where he pursued research. He began contributing to periodicals as “E. G. B.” and, according to GM, assisted others with research for published books including John Gough Nichols with works for the Camden society. His 1825 Original Poems, identified as “Second Series” on the title page, was intended as a sequel to the popular Original Poems by Ann and Jane Taylor with others (qq.v). 1829 he published Microscopic Amusements; or, Complete Companion to the Microscope, which he had written for Francis West, an optician in Fleet Street. He died at Compton Terrace, Islington, on 14 Feb. 1860 and was buried four days later in Brookwood Cemetery, Woking, Surrey. His son became a prominent physician and medical officer of health for Islington. (ancestry.co.uk 8 Jan. 2023; ODNB 8 Jan. 2023; GM [1860] 412-13) SR
Other Names:
- E. G. Ballard