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My mother's mother, Charlotte Ball, was the youngest of a large family. Her parents were Henry Ball and Charlotte Pearsall.
Henry Ball was born on 28th November 1864, at 28 Court, Lower Tower Street, in Aston, Birmingham. He was the son of Henry Ball and Jane Godfrey. Henry came from a large family. He had 6 brothers and 3 sisters. He was the second eldest child, as far as I can tell from the census records. Henry Jr became an Edge Tool Maker.
Charlotte Pearsall was born on 13th January 1867, at Railway Terrace, Nechells, Birmingham. She was the daughter of William Pearsall and Elizabeth Nation. She was the eldest child, and had two sisters and two brothers.
Henry and Charlotte married at St Saviour’s Church, Saltley, on 28th February, 1886. In 1891, the Ball family lived at 36 Argyle Street, Nechells, and Henry’s occupation was ‘Edge Tool Maker’, which was a skilled job. In those days, having a skilled job didn’t mean good wages, and by 1901, Henry’s occupation had changed to ‘Labourer’. Perhaps a temporary slump had occurred, because when his daughter Emily married, he was a Tool Maker again.
Illiteracy was common, especially among women, in those days. Charlotte has marked her Marriage Certificate with an ‘x’, as well as one of the witnesses. Education was not compulsory until the end of the 1870s, and women were expected to bear children and keep house.
Because the Ball family was so large, they used to stand around the table to eat!
According to a newspaper cutting, shown further on in this account, Henry enlisted in the army during WW1 at the age of 52. He was discharged a few months later, being medically unfit.
These were Henry and Charlotte’s children:-
Elizabeth Jane Ball (1886-1975) was known as ‘Auntie Lizzie’. In 1901, her occupation was ‘Store Wrapper-up’. She married Harry Shepperd (1882-1927) in 1908. They had six children: Willie (1912-), Ruth (1913-), Alfred (1916-), George (1920-), Albert (1921-) and Leslie (1923-1997). After Harry died, she married Alfred Bryant in 1929.
Henry Frederick Ball, born in 1889, the eldest son, He was married to Maud (unknown maiden name), and they had a daughter named Nellie. He served in the Army during WW1, and was discharged suffering from ‘shell shock’. I believe that he served with the Worcestershire Regiment. Shell shock was a nervous condition or trauma caused by the terror of battle. The Americans called it ‘battle fatigue’. Men were affected in different ways, but Henry suffered from tremors and died during the 1920s. According to Nellie Brown (nee Taylor), she remembers when she was a child, visiting her uncle Harry. He used to follow his wife, Maud, trembling, with his hands upon her shoulders. That is all that we know about him, and we don’t have his picture.
Nellie Ball (1891-1943) was born in Nechells. She went ‘into service’, (worked as a domestic servant), as so many young girls did in those days. When she was 16, she fell from an upstairs window that she was cleaning, and broke her back. She spent the rest of her life confined to bed.
She enjoyed the company of her nieces Freda and Nellie (Taylor), and her nephew Fred. She wrote to people all over the world, and one of her pen-friends was Mahatma Gandhi. She lived with the Ball family.
One contact wrote to me:
Nellie Ball: My mom Sheila can remember going to visit her aunt Nellie and remembers the stories about Gandhi being her pen friend. She also recalls her having her books at the side of her bed and a model band at the bottom of her bed, she remembers at Christmas Nellie would have a Christmas tree and presents etc at the bottom of her bed.
During World War 2, when the family lived in Erskine Street, the basement was reinforced as an air raid precaution. When there was a raid on, the family members would carry Nellie down to the basement. She died in 1943, aged 53. She is buried in the family grave at Witton cemetery, Birmingham.
Emily Ball (1893-1963) married Albert Cooke in 1916. He was killed in action either in 1916 or 1917. In 1918 she married Harry Taylor (1889-1970). They had three children: Frederick Harry Taylor (1920-1993), Freda Grace Leah Taylor (1922-1996) and Nellie Elsie Taylor (1926-).
My Mum told me when I was young that one of her cousins had been awarded a medal while flying bombers during WW2. Fred Taylor, served in the RAF and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal in 1944. He broke his apprenticeship as a Coachbuilder to volunteer for the RAF in 1939. His service began in January 1940, and he was posted to Duxford, a fighter station, where his carpentry skills were put to good use repairing damaged Hurricanes. He trained as an Air Frame Fitter, and remained at Duxford throughout the Battle of Britain and rose to the rank of Leading Aircraftsman.
Fred became interested in gunnery, and 'part-time' manned the anti-aircraft guns at the station. He told his son that he joined the RAF in order to fly, but his education was far too elementary, and he could never become a pilot or flight engineer. He was recommended for a promotion to Corporal, but turned it down and volunteered for Air Crew duties instead. There was a huge expansion of Bomber Command taking place, and Fred began his training as an Air Gunner in early 1943. On qualifying, he was promoted to Sergeant (the lowest rank for air crew).
He was posted to No 100 Squadron, flying in Lancasters, the first tour of ops beginning in August 1943. His duties were Rear Gunner. In December 1943 he was seriously injured in a crash on return from Berlin, and he was pulled unconscious from the wreckage probably by a farmer - he never knew for sure. He was in an RAF hospital for over a month, but returned to operations in April. He completed his first tour of 30 ops at the end of May 1944. He then spent his 'rest period' as a Gunnery Instructor. He told his son, Peter, that he couldn't wait to get back on ops, he hated instructing. Fred was awarded his Distinguished Flying Medal in October 1944. Meanwhile he had been promoted to Flight Sergeant.
Fred began his second tour in March 1945, after a prolonged period of being shifted around on various training courses, he joined another crew, and flew with the CO of B Flight, 101 Special Duties Squadron in Lancasters. (By strange coincidence, one of my favourite books when I was young was 101 Nights by Ray Ollis).
Fred was promoted to Warrant Officer the day before VE Day. He later refused a commission and left the RAF in 1948. He had to wait until November 1945 for his medal, which was pinned on his chest by the King. He must have been very proud.
Fred Taylor shot down at least 3 enemy night fighters.
Harry Taylor, Emily Taylor, (nee Ball), Fred Taylor, Daisy Taylor, (nee Hackett) and Albert Ball, (father of David and Lloyd), in 1945 in front of Buckingham Palace on the day he received the DFM from the King.
Alfred Ball, (1896-1916) joined the 7th (Service) Battalion, South Staffordshire Regiment, and was given the Service Number 10819. The Battalion was formed to supplement one of Kitchener’s New Armies, in this case, K1. The ‘Service’ battalions were made up of volunteers. Alfred’s battalion was an infantry battalion. Training was done at Grantham in Lincolnshire and the unit became part of the 11th (Northern) Division. On 12th June 1915, orders were given for the Division to prepare for service at Gallipoli. Embarkation took place at Liverpool from 30th June, and the Division sailed on the ‘Aquitania’ and the ‘Empress of Britain’. Alfred’s unit landed at Moudros on the Greek Island of Limnos on 10th July 1915, and then proceeded to Gallipoli. They landed near Baba Lala at Suvla Bay, on 6 – 7th August. The landings were successful, but the Allies dithered, and Mustapha Kemal, the Turkish general, summoned his reinforcements and sealed off the Allied beaches, and the misery of the heat, disease and lack of food and water took its toll on the Allies.
Winter arrived suddenly, and brought more misery on the trapped Allies. This eye-witness account describes what happened on 27th November:-
‘A terrific thunderstorm was followed by 24 hours of torrential rain, during which the men got soaked to the skin. Then came an icy hurricane; the rain turned into a blinding blizzard; then heavy snow, followed by two nights of bitter frost…. At Suvla, trenches were soon flooded, water courses soon became roaring torrents and a wall-like spate of mud and water, several feet high, bore down the corpses of dead Turks and pack ponies into our lines……streams of exhausted men struggled down to the beaches, many collapsing and freezing to death where they fell……At Suvla alone, during these three dreadful days, there were more than 5000 cases of frostbite. No such storm had been known in these parts for more than 40 years.’
Kitchener himself came to see the conditions and decided that there was no prospect of a successful campaign, and ordered that the Peninsula should be evacuated. Alfred Ball’s Division was evacuated on 19 – 20th December, and moved to Imroz on the small Turkish island of Canakkale.
On 26th January the Division began to move to Egypt, landing at Alexandria on 2nd February, and concentrating at Sidi Bishr six days later. On 19th February, 1916, the Division took over a section of the Suez Canal defences. They now had a few months of these relatively peaceful duties to recover from the awful conditions of the winter in Gallipoli.
On 17th June, the Division received orders to move to France. They completed embarkation on 3rd July at Alexandria, and by the 7th July, the Division had set up a new headquarters at Flesselles, in France, and by 27th had taken over part of the front in the Third Army sector.
The Division then took part in the following actions on the Somme; the capture of the German trench system known as Wundt-Werk; the Battle of Flers-Courcelette on 15-22nd September. Tanks were used for the first time in this battle, with some success. The Battle of Thiepval took place next and ended 28th September.
The final battles that Alfred took part in were Ancre Heights and Beaumont-Hamel in November. The Battalion war diary states:-
Beaucourt, 27th November 1916…. ‘The following telegram received ‘ Am much pleased with work done by your Batt last night. G.O.C.R.S.’…Considering that the battalion has been under strain of critical shellfire for 6 days, the telegram affords an excellent commentary of the spirit of the battalion’.
Englebelmer 29th November 1916…. ‘ Relieved by the 6 Yorkshire Regt, 32nd Btn. Relief commenced 6.30pm and the battalion was billeted at Englebelmer by 11.15pm moving via Hamel-Mesnil and Martinsart. Casualties 10 wounded….10819 Pte Ball A’.
A summary for November reads:
‘The last ten days here perhaps have been the most??? experienced by the battalion. The men were continuously exposed to accurate shell-fire from which there was no adequate cover, and was consequently a constant drain in casualties’.
So we know that Alfred was wounded on 29 November 1916.
Alfred was returned to the University War Hospital in Southampton, where he died of his wounds on 10 December 1916, aged 21. His Death Certificate states that he was a Driver. This is not correct, because he was in an infantry battalion. He died from pneumonia caused by a gun-shot wound to his left lung. He is buried in the Ball family grave at Witton Cemetery, Birmingham. Alfred was given a full military funeral, and his coffin was born by a horse-drawn gun carriage. Emily Taylor used to say that she remembered the terrible sound of the carriage and horses hooves on the cobbled street.
George Ball (1898-1916) enlisted at the age of 16, joining the 11th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment. He was killed during the second phase of the Battle of the Somme, at the Battle of Bazentin Ridge.
The Ridge was part of long well-defended German lines but the British forces had to cross an open valley in order to take it. On top of the Ridge was High Wood (the English name given by the British Commanders for ease of reference). Early on 14th July 1916 it was thought that the Wood was unoccupied, but dithering by the generals meant that an attack was only launched by the 7th Dragoon Guards and the 20th Deccan Horse at 7pm. The two cavalry regiments charged with their lances against High Wood. The dithering had given the Germans time to bring in their troops, and the cavalry was met by artillery and machine gun fire.
One eye-witness said:-
‘It was an incredible sight, an unbelievable sight, they galloped up with their lances and with pennants flying, up the slope to High Wood and straight into it….They simply galloped on through all that and horses and men were dropping to the ground, with no hope against the machine guns, because the Germans were firing down into the valley where the soldiers were. It was an absolute rout. A magnificent sight. Tragic.’
Nevertheless the cavalry regiments reached High Wood, killed a number of Germans, and took 32 prisoners, and they held the Wood throughout the night. No reinforcements were sent in, so the Wood was abandoned next morning and the Germans re-occupied it.
The War diary of the 11th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment says….
Halloy July 5th 1916, ‘Battalion rested in billets. Orders were received in afternoon to move off at short notice’.
Halloy July 6th, Battalion ready to move. Motor buses did not begin to arrive until 8.30am’.
Mellincourt July 6th, 4pm, ‘Arrival of Battalion completed. Tents pitched.’
Albert July 7th, 7am, ‘Battalion marched through to Albert.’
Albert (Battle of the Somme), July 8th. ‘1am orders received for two companies to proceed to trenches known as Heligoland.’
12 noon orders received for Battalion to proceed to front line trenches from Tara??? Plus occupied trenches along Contalmaison – La Boiselle road, (taken from enemy at noon today).
July 10th, 1.30am, Battalion ordered to push strong patrols to certain points immediately west of Contalmaison with a view to the re-adjustment of our line. The operation was cancelled’.
July 14th. Intense artillery action throughout the day, we were not worried very much.
July 15th, 3am, Operation orders arrived that the 112 Brigade would attack Pouzieres at 9.20am today. Conference of Commanding Officers at 6.30am. The dispositions were that the 8th E Lanc Regiment were to clear that part of the village south of the Albert-Pozieres Road plus the 6th Bed Regt that area north of the road. The 11th R War R to take up tools and assist the two battalions to consolidate the ground gained. The 10th L N Lanc Regt was to carry bombs, stores etc. The order of attack was each battalion with 2 corps in the front line plus two in support of each battalion to follow the other in the following order : 8th E Lancs, 6th Beds, 11 R War R, under cover of an intense bombardment. The distance of the objective in view of the enemy was about 1100 yards. Pozieres was reported thinly held with no wire to contend with. Due to shelling, moved to trenches off the Contalmaison- Pozieres road.
5pm . The artillery again bombed the village and the infantry’s second assault was timed for 6pm. The signal for the second assault being a red rocket. The bombardment very intensive failed to put out the hostile’s mg’s (machine guns), and the assault was met with such fierce fire that it collapsed, though our infantry did not give way, they held their ground with great tenacity.
Casualties since the battle arrived in this sector have been 15 officers and 450 other ranks.
July 16th relieved and proceeded to billets in Albert’.
George Ball was blown to pieces by a shell, and his remains are buried at the London Cemetery, High Wood. He was 18 when he was killed on July 16th 1916.
From the Birmingham Weekly Post, 2nd September 1916.
Albert Ball (1902-) married Elsie Edgington in 1923 in Birmingham. She was the daughter of Frederick and Laura Edgington, of 39 Adelaide Terrace, Erskine Street, Ashted, Birmingham. They had two children that I know about, sons David Ball, born in 1922, and Lloyd Peter Ball, born in 1925. Both David and Lloyd were killed within 3 months of each other during the Allied invasion of Europe in the Second World War.
My mother's cousins: David Ball and Lloyd Ball.
David Ball (1922-1944) served with the 20th Anti-tank Regiment in the Royal Artillery. He was killed in action in northern France, 8 days after the D-Day invasion of June 6th 1944 by the Allies. He was aged 22. His unit was attached to the 3rd British Infantry Division. They landed at one of the three beaches covered by British and Commonwealth Forces, Sword Beach. The landings went very well, and the first objective was to take the city of Caen, the capital of Normandy. This was called Operation Perch, which lasted from 9th-14th June. However, the Germans brought in their elite Panzer Divisions with their Panther and Tiger Tanks. The Tigers were huge and were armed with a large calibre gun. This stopped the 3rd Division advance and very fierce fighting took place. The anti-tank units were quite successful, but the Germans were quick to out-manoeuvre our forces. The fighting in the area was bitter and especially brutal. The Germans were desperately trying to hold back the Allied armies, and the terrain of narrow lanes and tall hedgerows made open battle impossible, so the fighting tended to be a lot of skirmishes as one side took the other by surprise. Facing a heavily armoured tank with an anti-tank weapon out in the open must have been very frightening, not to mention extremely dangerous.
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Lloyd Peter Ball (1925-1944) served with the 3rd Parachute Battalion, 1st Parachute Brigade, Army Air Corps. He was killed at the Battle of Arnhem in Holland on 18th September 1944. He was 19. He has no known grave, but he is remembered at the Groesbeek Memorial in Holland.
The Battle of Arnhem was part of ‘Operation Market Garden’, and was a terrible disaster for the British forces with very heavy losses. The objective was to capture three very important bridges at Eindhoven, Nijmegen and Arnhem by the American 101st Division, the Polish Brigade and the British 1st Airborne Division. The bridge at Arnhem was the biggest prize because it crossed the River Rhine into Germany, and provided a key bridgehead. Although the American landings went well in the Nijmegen sector, they were held up by fierce resistance. The British landings did not go well because the gliders and parachute troops were released in the wrong place, too far from the Arnhem Bridge to achieve surprise. To make matters worse, unknown to the Allies, the Germans had got hold of the entire battle plan from a crashed glider.
The plan was bold, and launched in haste; the Allies were convinced that German defences in the area were weak, despite warnings to the contrary by the Dutch Resistance. In fact two divisions of the 1st SS Panzer Corps were in the area and had been trained how to tackle an airborne attack. However the British succeeded in capturing the north end of one of the Arnhem Bridges, and managed to hold it for six days. They fought bravely and demonstrated outstanding acts of courage to repel repeated German attacks. In total, 1130 British paratroopers were killed and 6450 were captured.
This is a ‘still’ from wartime footage taken at the Battle of Arnhem. Whenever it was shown on TV, Frederick Taylor always used to say that he thought that the man in the mortar team facing the camera was his cousin Lloyd Ball. If it is Lloyd, it is a unique record of a brave family member. The clip of film lasts only a few seconds, but shows the mortar being fired. The men are wearing parachutists’ uniform and helmets.
[I now know that the the man facing the camera is Pvt. Ron Tierney, 23 Mortar Platoon, S Company, 1st Bn. the Border Regt. He survived the war. This image is on the front of the book "When Dragons Flew - An Illustrated History of The 1st Battalion The Border Regiment 1939-45" ]
Lloyd had only joined the unit a couple of weeks earlier, and that particular platoon only two days earlier. He was one of the few of those in the whole of 1st Airborne Division that actually got anywhere near Arnhem Bridge, holding a position 2 or 300 yards from the bridge and 80 yards from the Rhine, which must have taken some doing and showed his mettle and character. It seems that he died as the paras tried to change position. These documents are from the National Archives, Kew, London:
Interestingly, the DC3 that took him to Arnhem wound up in Australia. The aircraft was Douglas C-47, or Dakota as the RAF called them, serial KG647, belonging to 575 Squadron. It was eventually sold in Australia, and the last record shows that it was registered in Australia with a company called Discovery Air Tours, and registered VH-MIN. The record says that it was put up for auction in 2009, when the company went bust. It was one of several aircraft that were not sold. It was eventually broken up: http://www.adastra.adastron.com/aircraft/dc3/vh-min.htm.
More details here: http://www.aussieairliners.org/dc-3/vh-smi/vhsmi.html
William (?) born in 1900; (does not appear on 1911 census, I think that William was possibly the son of Henry’s brother, William, and that there could be a mistake on the 1901 census).
Elsie Ball (1903-) born in Birmingham. She never married. In the 1950s Elsie lived with Grandparents, Harry and Emily Taylor at Poplar Terrace, Nechells.
Elsie Ball in the Salvation Army, 1920s.
Elsie with Harry Taylor, 1940s.
Grace Ball was born in 1906 in Birmingham. She married Reginald Clifford in 1927. They had two children, Muriel Clifford and Roy Clifford
Grace and Reginald Clifford, 1927.
Grace Ball with her mother Charlotte (nee Pearsall)
Charlotte Ball (Lotte), my grandmother, was born on the 30th October, 1908. She married Ambrose Madden. They emigrated to Australia and had 3 children, Pearl, Gloria, and Hadassa. She died in Bunbury, Western Australia, in 1992.
Lotte and Ambrose Madden, 1933.
The 1911 census shows that the whole family was living at 93 Aston Church Road, Nechells, Birmingham. Henry, then aged 46, was an Edge Tool Moulder, son Henry aged 22 was a Carter, son Alfred aged 15 was ‘helping in an iron shop’, and daughter Emily was a ‘servant sleeping at home’.
Henry Ball died in October, 1919, aged 54, from a stroke. He is buried in the family grave at Witton. There are three people buried in the grave, Henry, Nellie and Alfred. Only Alfred has a headstone.
Charlotte Sr. (nee Pearsall) remarried in 1925, (now this is a strange story), to her son, Albert’s, father-in-law! She married Frederick Ernest Edgington, father of Elsie and Walter Edgington. Frederick’s first wife was Laura Horton. Frederick was born 10 May 1874 in Worcester, his parents were Thomas and Ellen Edgington.
Charlotte and Frederick Edgington on a boat trip, about late 1920s.
The 1920 electoral role shows that Laura Edgington was still living then, and the occupants of 39 Adelaide Terrace, Erskine Street, Ashted, were Frederick, Laura, and Albert William Edgington. (Erskine Street was earlier named Adelaide Street).
The electoral role also gives us some information about who was living at the Ball home:-
1920, at 163 Thimble Mill Lane. Charlotte Ball, Harry Taylor. Those unable to vote wouldn’t be included on the electoral role, and in those days, women didn’t have the right to vote until they were 30! So Emily would be there, as well as all the unmarried children.
1925, at 257 Thimble Mill Lane. Charlotte Ball, Albert Ball, George Tristan (lodger?), Harry Taylor.
1931-32, at 257 Thimble Mill Lane. Charlotte Edgington, Frederick Edgington, Walter Edgington, Charlotte (Lotte) Ball, Elsie Ball, Nellie Ball.
Charlotte (Lotte) Ball and Walter Edgington, about 1922.
Charlotte and Frederick moved to Kidderminster, Worcestershire, presumably to be near Frederick’s family. Charlotte passed away in 1956, aged 89. I don’t know when Frederick died.
Acknowledgement: most of the Ball family history was researched by Peter Taylor, son of Mum's cousin, Fred Taylor, and distributed to interested family members in 2011. We were able to exchange photos which hadn't been seen by either family before. Dave McIntyre, an amateur family and military historian, sent me the information on Lloyd Ball at Arnhem.
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