George Alexander Ballard
Royal Navy Admiral (1862–1948)
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Admiral George Alexander Ballard CB (7 March 1862 – 16 September 1948) was an officer of the Royal Navy and a historian.
George Alexander Ballard | |
|---|---|
Admiral Ballard c1914 | |
| Born | March 7, 1862 Bombay, India |
| Died | September 16, 1948 (aged 86) Hill House, Downton, near Salisbury, Wiltshire |
| Military career | |
| Allegiance | United Kingdom |
Branch | Royal Navy |
Service years | 1875–1921 |
Rank | Admiral |
| Commands | Janus Isis Royal Arthur[1] Terrible Hampshire Commonwealth Britannia |
Conflicts | Mahdist War, Third Anglo-Burmese War, First World War |
| Other work | Author |
Biography
Ballard was the eldest son of General John Archibald Ballard (1829–1880), and his wife Joanna, the daughter of Robert Scott-Moncrieff, and was born at Malabar Hill, Bombay in British India on 7 March 1862.
He joined the Royal Navy as a sub-lieutenant, was promoted lieutenant 15 March 1884,[2] and commander 31 December 1897.[3] In February 1902 he was ordered to six months' service at the Admiralty.[4] He was further promoted captain 31 December 1903.[5] In May 1913, Ballard was appointed a naval aide-de-camp to King George V,[6] and in the King's Birthday Honours 3 June 1913 he was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath.[7] The following year he was appointed rear admiral 27 August 1914.[8] He became Admiral Superintendent Malta Dockyard in September 1916.[9]
After a long and active career in the Navy he retired as vice-admiral in 1921 and was advanced to the rank of admiral on the Retired List in 1924.[10]
During the 1930s he contributed two extensive series of technical articles on the warships of the mid-Victorian Navy to the quarterly Mariner's Mirror, one series on the armoured vessels (which was subsequently republished in a consolidated form in his book The Black Battlefleet) and one on lesser warships.
Archives
- Correspondence and papers, MS 80/200 NRA 20623; National Maritime Museum
- Memoirs, 1988/89; Royal Navy Museum, Portsmouth
Publications
- The Influence of the Sea on the Political History of Japan (John Murray, London, 1921)
- America and the Atlantic (Duckworth & Co, London, 1923)
- Rulers of the Indian Ocean (Duckworth & Co, London, 1927)
- The Black Battlefleet (Nautical Publications Company, 1980)