Men of the Time, eleventh edition/Ball, John Thomas
BALL, The Right Hon. John Thomas, M.P., LL.D., eldest son of Major Benjamin Marcus Ball, was born at Dublin in 1815, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin, graduating B.A. in 1836, and LL.D. in 1844. He was called to the Irish bar in 1840, and became successively a Queen's Counsel, Queen's Advocate and Judge of the Provincial Consistorial Court at Armagh. At the general election of 1868 he was returned to the House of Commons in the Conservative interest by the University of Dublin, and for a few weeks in Nov. and Dec. of that year he was successively Solicitor-General and Attorney-General for Ireland under Mr. Disraeli's administration. In 1870 the University of Oxford conferred on him the honorary degree of D.C.L. Dr. Ball proved himself to be a ready and energetic debater by his numerous speeches on the Church Bill, the Land Bill, and other measures affecting Ireland. When the Conservatives came into power in Feb. 1874, Dr. Ball again became Attorney-General for Ireland, and at the close of that year he was appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland. He took the oaths of office Jan. 1,1875, and resigned in May, 1880. He has been Vice-Chancellor of the University of Dublin, since Jan. 1880. He married, in 1852, Catherine, daughter of the Rev. Charles R. Elrington, Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Dublin.