Biography

Ballard was born on 22 April, 1791 in Islington

Islington

Islington is a neighbourhood in Greater London, England and forms the central district of the London Borough of Islington. It is a district of Inner London, spanning from Islington High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the area around the busy Upper Street...

, Middlesex

Middlesex

Middlesex is one of the historic counties of England and the second smallest by area. The low-lying county contained the wealthy and politically independent City of London on its southern boundary and was dominated by it from a very early time...

, the son of Edward Ballard, an alderman of Salisbury, Wiltshire and Elizabeth, daughter of G. F. Benson of that city.

He obtained a situation in the Stamp Office in 1809, and, having resigned this appointment, entered the Excise Office, which he also left of his own accord in 1817 in which year he became a contributor to Woollers' Reasoner. The following year he married Mary Ann Shadgett (c1798 - 1820), and wrote several criticisms and verses for the Weekly Review, then edited by his brother-in-law, William Shadgett. He contributed to the Literary Chronicle and the Imperial Magazine under the signature E. G. B., and to the Literary Magnet and the World of Fashion under that of Γ. He published in 1825 a volume entitled A New Series of Original Poems and a few years after another entitled Microscopic Amusements.

He was exceedingly fond of research. Robert Benson

Robert Benson (barrister)

Robert Benson was a barrister and author who served as recorder of Salisbury. He was born in Salisbury as the youngest son of the Rev. Edmund Benson, priest-vicar of Salisbury Cathedral. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, receiving his Bachelor of Arts in 1818 and his Master of Arts in...

, his cousin, and Henry Hatcher received no small help from him in writing their History of Salisbury (1843), which formed part of Hoare's Wiltshire. He helped John Gough Nichols in the works undertaken for the Camden Society

Camden Society

The Camden Society, named after the English antiquary and historian William Camden, was founded in 1838 in London to publish early historical and literary materials, both unpublished manuscripts and new editions of rare printed books....

. In 1848 he brought out some parts of a continuation of John Strype

John Strype

John Strype was an English historian and biographer. He was a cousin of Robert Knox, a famous sailor.Born in Houndsditch, London, he was the son of John Strype, or van Stryp, a member of a Huguenot family whom, in order to escape religious persecution within Brabant, had settled in East London...

's Ecclesiastical Annals in a publication called the Surplice, but this paper and Ballard's scheme soon came to an end. He wrote occasionally in The Gentleman's Magazine

The Gentleman's Magazine

The Gentleman's Magazine was founded in London, England, by Edward Cave in January 1731. It ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1922. It was the first to use the term "magazine" for a periodical...

, and in Notes and Queries

Notes and Queries

Notes and Queries is a long-running quarterly scholarly journal that publishes short articles related to "English language and literature, lexicography, history, and scholarly antiquarianism". Its emphasis is on "the factual rather than the speculative"...

. He died at Islington on 14 February, 1860, leaving a son, Edward Ballard

Edward Ballard

Edward Ballard was a 19th century English physician, best known for his reports on the unsanitary conditions in which most of Victorian England lived....

, a medical inspector and author of several medical works, and a daughter.