George Ballard (biographer)
George Ballard was an English antiquary and biographer, the author of Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain.
Life
Ballard was born at Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire. Self-educated, Ballard taught himself Anglo-Saxon while working in a habit-maker's shop, and attracted the attention of the Saxon scholar Elizabeth Elstob. Lord Chedworth and other local gentlemen provided him with an annuity of £60 a year, enabling Ballard to move to Oxford to use the Bodleian Library. Dr. Jenner appointed him a clerk of Magdalen College, Oxford, and he subsequently became a university beadle.Ballard died young, and his only printed publication was Memoirs of several ladies of Great Britain, who have been celebrated for their writings, or skill in the learned languages, arts and sciences. This quarto volume was published by subscription, and dedicated to Sarah Talbot of Kineton, the wife of the clergyman William Talbot of Kineton who had helped him receive patronage as a young man, and Mary Delany. The first woman treated by Ballard's Memoirs is Julian of Norwich; the last is Constantia Grierson.
Ballard left a large manuscript collection, and his substantial correspondence, to the Bodleian.
Subjects of ''Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain''
In the Memoirs, Ballard arranged his sixty-five essays chronologically. This list is alphabetical, and names have been modernized to reflect current practices.- Catherine of Aragon, queen consort
- Margaret Ascham, writer and editor
- Anne Askew, poet and preacher
- Mary Astell, writer and philosopher
- Ann Bacon, writer and scholar
- Mary Basset, translator and classicist
- Ann Baynard, natural philosopher
- Margaret Beaufort, politician and patron
- Juliana Berners, writer and nun
- Elizabeth Bland, Hebraist
- Catherina Boevey, philanthropist
- Elizabeth Burnet, philanthropist and religious writer
- Elizabeth Bury, diarist
- Elizabeth Cavendish, writer
- Margaret Cavendish, writer and philosopher
- Katherine Chidley, Puritan activist and Leveller
- Mary Chudleigh, poet and intellectual
- Margaret Clement, scholar
- Anne Clifford, autobiographer and patron
- Elizabeth Clinton, noblewoman and writer
- Mildred Cooke, scholar and translator
- Elizabeth Dauncey, daughter of Thomas More
- Eleanor Davies, prophet
- Elizabeth Fane, writer and literary patron
- Anne Finch, poet
- Mary FitzAlan, translator
- Grace Gethin, essayist
- Jane Grey, scholar
- Constantia Grierson, classicist, editor, and poet
- Anne Halkett, religious writer and autobiographer
- Cecily Heron, Latinist and daughter of Thomas More
- Susanna Hopton, religious writer
- Jane Howard, noblewoman
- Esther Inglis, calligrapher and miniaturist
- Margery Kempe, pilgrim and writer
- Anne Killigrew, poet and painter
- Catherine Killigrew, gentlewoman and scholar
- Elizabeth Legge, linguist & poet
- Elizabeth Lucar, calligrapher
- Jane Lumley, classicist
- Damaris Cudworth Masham, philosopher theologian
- Mary Monck, poet
- Dudleya North, orientalist, linguist, and classical scholar
- Frances Norton, writer
- Julian of Norwich, anchorite and writer
- Dorothy Pakington, religious writer
- Catherine Parr, queen consort
- Blanche Parry, antiquary
- Katherine Philips, poet
- Margaret Roper, scholar, translator, and daughter of Thomas More
- Margaret Rowlett, sister of Ann Bacon, Mildred Cooke, Elizabeth Russell
- Elizabeth Russell, gentlewoman and poet
- Anne Seymour, poet
- Jane Seymour, poet
- Margaret Seymour, poet
- Mary Sidney, poet
- Arbella Stuart, noblewoman
- Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland
- Catherine Tishem, classical scholar
- Elizabeth Tudor, Queen of England and Ireland
- Mary Tudor, Queen of England and Ireland
- Elizabeth Walker, diarist and pharmacist
- Elizabeth Jane Weston, scholar & linguist
- Anne Wharton, poet and dramatist