2nd Lieutenant Benedict Hanly Ball
3rd Battalion Hampshire Regiment attached 14th Battalion
Killed in Action
Date of Birth: Quarter 1, 1884
Place of Birth: Chiswick, Middlesex
Date of Death: 3 September 1916 aged 34
Buried: Remembered on Thiepval Memorial; and the London Assurance Plaque now sited at National Memorial Arboretum, Staffordshire.
Awarded the British War Medal and the Victory Medal
2nd Lieutenant Benedict Hanly Ball (Some records show his name as Hanley), aged 34.
Benedict was born 1884 in Chiswick, Middlesex, the son of Henry Houston Ball and Alice Caroline Langdon. He was baptised on 23 Mar 1884 at Bedford Park St Michael and All Angels, Hounslow, London.
His father Henry, was born in Stillorgan, Dublin (B.1848), he worked as an underwriter. Benedict's mother Alice, was born in Dorset (B.1848). Bendedict had a sister Phllis Mary Ball, born in Acton, London (B.1885) and a brother Micheal Ball (B.1887), also born in Acton (Michael later kived in Vancouver, Canada). In 1891 the family have a female servant living with them.
Benedict was the nephew of William Henry Bolton Ball who spent his last years at Glenside, Ringmore from 1935 to 1948. His grandfather Thomas Hanly Ball had been 'Lecturer and Curate of St Andrew's Holborn'.
Two of his aunts, Emily Jane Maude Ball and Ellen Ball were also living at Glenside during the war and served as Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurses in hospitals in both Teignmouth and Torrington.
Benedict was educated at St George's College, Addlestone, Surrey.
He later worked as an assistant accountant with an insurance company.
Benedict left a widow, Mrs B H Ball, 133 Northland Road, Hampstead NW11. They had been married in Dublin in 1912.
Hampshire Regiment
Cap Badge
Second Lieutenant Ball served in the Officers Training Corps, 13th Battalion Hampshire Regiment (attached to 14th Battalion) being commissioned as temporary 2nd Lieutenant on 27.11.1915.
He was killed in action at the Somme on 3 September 1916. Remembered on Thiepval Memorial; and the London Assurance Plaque now sited at National Memorial Arboretum, Staffordshire.
The 14th Hampshire Battalion
The battalion went into battle on the Somme in early September 1916.
They spent just three weeks in training and went over the top at dawn. They suffered 457 casualities in their first two weeks at the front.
Their objective was the heights above Hammel, a position regarded hitherto as impregnable.
"Officers paid heavy toll to the enemy's snipers. Few indeed , reached their objective, for the huns put up a murderous fire with machine-guns, and his creeping barrage was a fearful thing.
The Battalion was very badly mauled and was sent back for refitting.
Portsmouth in the Great War
Sarah Quail
