John Ballard, c.1770–1842

A Life Narrative

Compiled from parish, rate book, poll book, census, and civil registration records. Where evidence is direct, it is stated as fact; where a connection rests on strong circumstantial grounds, this is noted in the text.

Origins

John Ballard was born around 12 May 1770, almost certainly at or near Kings Stanley, Gloucestershire, the son of William Ballard, then a wool-scribbler, and Ann Lusty, of a long-established local cloth-trade family. No baptism record survives for him — consistent with the family's Nonconformist, likely Baptist, convictions.

His birth date rests on a single, remarkable piece of evidence: a handwritten note on the back of his parents' 1771 marriage licence, reading simply "J B, 12th May 1770." William and Ann did not marry until February 1771, some nine months after this date — most plausibly explained by William not yet having reached the age of 21, at which point he could marry without parental consent.

An LDS-indexed baptism record purporting to show a "John Ballard, son of Wm & Jane Ballard," baptised 8 February 1772 at Christ Church, Bristol, has been checked directly against the original parish registers and bishop's transcripts and found not to exist. This entry should be treated as false and disregarded.

No other candidate in the extensive Bristol Ballard records fits John's age, and — while no document states the parentage outright — the identification is considered secure on strong circumstantial grounds.

Childhood

John's mother, Ann, died in 1777 and was buried at Broadmead, when John was around seven years old. That same year, his father William enlisted in the 39th Regiment of Foot and was posted to Gibraltar, where he would remain through the entire Great Siege (1779–1783), returning home only in 1783 having lost a leg. John's childhood between roughly age seven and thirteen was therefore spent with his father absent on active service, presumably in the care of family, congregation, or other arrangements in Bristol — the details of which have not survived.

Marriage

On 25 December 1799, John married Elizabeth Appleford at St Nicholas, Bristol. Elizabeth had been baptised 4 November 1770 at Temple Church, Bristol, daughter of Thomas Appleford and Elizabeth Morgan — though a note in the record raises the possibility that an Elizabeth Appleford baptised 24 July 1769 at Ramsbury, Wiltshire, daughter of the same-named parents, may in fact be the same woman, with a Bristol family connection to a wider Ramsbury Appleford/Ballard network.

Through this marriage, John gained the Freedom of the City of Bristol on 3 March 1808, by virtue of marrying the daughter of the late Thomas Appleford.

Trade and Household

John worked as a tobacco pipe maker (recorded variously as pipe maker and pipe turner), a trade well represented in this part of Bristol since its earliest development in the early eighteenth century — the Great Ann Street/Wade Street district having originally been laid out for artisans including pipe makers. His identification as "IB, 1808–41" in the archaeological literature on clay pipes (Oswald, Clay Pipes for the Archaeologist) raises the possibility that pipes bearing his maker's mark survive in the archaeological record.

From at least 1804 to 1809, John rented a house at Lodges Court (off Redcross Street and New Street, within St Philip & Jacob parish) from landlord G. Webb, his rent recorded annually in the parish rate books.

In 1810, the same property is recorded against "Widow Ballard" — almost certainly Elizabeth Ballard (née Smith), the widow of John's father William, the rate book entry reflecting her eventual widowed status even though William did not in fact die until February 1812. The following year's entry (reflecting, per the rate books' usual lag, actual occupancy into 1812) records William Ballard — most likely William senior himself, in the final months of his life. The pattern suggests the Lodges Court tenancy passed between, or was shared by, John's household and his father's in these years — quite possibly reflecting the family caring for their aging, disabled veteran patriarch at the end of his life.

Public Life

John appears repeatedly in Bristol poll books over more than two decades, voting from a series of addresses across the same small area of the city:

• 1812 — Lawrence Hill, described as a tobacco pipe maker, voting for Mr Hunt

• 1820 — Lewin's Mead

• 1830 — Great George Street

• 1832 and 1835 — Great George Street, described as a pipemaker

Later Life and Death

By the 1841 Census, John was living on New Street, at the junction with Ann Street, aged 70, a pipemaker, with his wife Elizabeth, also 70, and a Sarah Appleford, aged 14 (likely a relative of Elizabeth's), all recorded as born in the county.

John died on 26 April 1842, aged 72, of dropsy, at New Street, with Elizabeth present at his death (she signed the certificate with her mark). His burial has not yet been located.

John Ballard's life spans the whole arc of his family's Bristol story — born in Gloucestershire cloth country to a family soon to be scattered by his mother's early death and his father's long absence at war, raised in the shadow of Broadmead and the family's Nonconformist identity, and settled for the whole of his adult life within a few streets of St Philip & Jacob parish, working the same modest artisan trade the district had been built for over a century earlier. He and Elizabeth appear to have had no surviving children of their own recorded, though the household's continuing ties to Sarah Appleford and to his father's final tenancy at Lodges Court show a family that, to the end, stayed within reach of one another.

Compiled from: marriage licence note (GRO Q2/24/39); St Nicholas parish marriage register and bishop's transcripts (BRO P/St.N/R/1/k, P/St.N/R/3/B, EP/V/4/39); Temple Church baptism register; Bristol Burgess Rolls; Bristol parish rate books (Lodges Court, St Philip & Jacob); UK Poll Books and Electoral Registers, 1538–1893; 1841 Census (HO107/378); England & Wales Civil Registration Death Index, 1837–1915 (1842, June qtr., vol. 11, p. 232); Oswald, A. (1975) Clay Pipes for the Archaeologist, BAR British Series 14.