Guide to the Papers of William Macmahon Ball, 1921-1985

 

Collection context

Summary

Collection number:
MS 7851
Creator:
Ball, William Macmahon, 1901-1986
Extent:
6.44 metres and (46 boxes)
Language:
English
Preferred citation:
Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of William Macmahon Ball, National Library of Australia, MS 7851, [series/file number]'.
Availability:
Available
Access conditions:
Part available for research; part requires permission for research (Series 2.2, box 7). Not for loan.

Background

Content Summary:

The papers include correspondence and memoranda (with many copies of Ball's replies), drafts of talks, broadcasts and articles by Ball and others, lecture notes, reports, seminar and conference papers, subject files and press cuttings. While there is no sequence of diaries in the usual sense, amongst the highlights of the collection are typed diaries documenting events in 1945, 1946 and 1947. ( Series 12, Files 1-5). There are only a handful of photographs.

While the coverage of Ball's career is uneven, there is some good material on his diplomatic appointments. There is disappointingly little on the United Nations Conference in San Francisco. Noticeably absent also are complete manuscripts of his books.

Biographical Note:

William Macmahon Ball was born in Casterton, Victoria, on 29 August 1901. Educated first at Caulfield Grammar School and then at the University of Melbourne, he obtained a Bachelor of Arts (First Class Honours) in 1923. From 1924 to 1929 Ball was a research scholar in psychology at the University of Melbourne, lecturing in Psychology, Logic and Ethics.

On 20 December 1929 Ball married Katrine, daughter of J.T. Noble Anderson, who was a friend and business partner of Sir John Monash.

In the same year, Ball won a Rockefeller Fellowship to the London School of Economics. While on this fellowship, Ball made a special study of public opinion and propaganda methods in Germany. He spent 1929-1932 in London, Germany, France and Italy, studying European politics.

On his return to Australia, Ball secured a post at the University of Melbourne, lecturing in Modern Political Institutions. This period lasted from 1932 to 1938, when he again went abroad, this time on a Carnegie Fellowship. Between 1938 and 1939 Ball spent several months attached to the BBC studying its methods of programming talks and collecting and broadcasting world news. At the time of the Munich crisis, Ball went through Sudetenland with the German Army, visited Prague and spent a day in Sachenhausen concentration camp, the first foreigner allowed to visit such a camp for several years.

From 1940 to 1944, Ball was Controller of Short Wave Broadcasts for the Commonwealth Government. In February 1940 he was granted special leave to take charge of the broadcasting work in the Department of Information. His unit recorded, translated and analysed enemy broadcasts.

In 1945, shortly before the end of the Pacific War, Ball returned to Melbourne University as Senior Lecturer in charge of the Department of Political Science. Also in 1945, Ball was sent to San Francisco as Adviser to the Australian Delegation at the United Nations Conference, and from November to December was Australian Government Political Representative in the Netherlands East Indies.

Ball's diplomatic work continued after the War, taking him to Japan from 1946 to 1947 as Member of the Allied Council for Japan, representing jointly UK, India, Australia and New Zealand. In 1948 he led the Australian Government Goodwill Mission to countries in East and South-East Asia.

Returning again to the University of Melbourne, Ball held the post of Professor of Political Science from 1949 to his retirement in 1968. During this time, in 1955, he travelled to the UK on a British Commonwealth Fellowship, stationed at Chatham House and St Anthony's College, Oxford.

Throughout his career, Ball was a regular commentator on world affairs for the ABC. He also broadcast many times for the BBC. He contributed articles on international affairs to British and Australian newspapers.

Ball died in Melbourne on 26 December 1986, aged 85. Katrine died in October 1991. They had one daughter, Jenny (Ellis).

Provenance:

The collection was purchased in 1987 from Ball's widow, Katrine.

Arrangement:

Ball's filing system was erratic and at times non-existent. There were numerous files with one or more titles unrelated to the diverse or sparse contents. Staff faced the choice of splitting files and distributing the contents across series or keeping the files intact and consigning them to the series which related to the bulk of the contents. The latter option was adopted. Unexpected items therefore appear in files in all the series. File titles are largely based on Ball's own file headings. Where these are brief, such as the surname of a lecture subject, they have been expanded to make the guide more meaningful.

In 1983 a member of Manuscripts staff spent several days at Eltham listing the Ball Papers in his study and in the house. Not all the papers listed on that occasion were contained in the consignment which arrived in the Library in 1987. The unevenness of the collection is probably due to some files being retained by family or associates. The Melbourne University Press files, for example, are not as extensive as they once were (Series 14, Files 4-5).

Container List:
Series File Box
1 1-8 1
1 9-16 2
1 17-25 3
1 26-33 4
2 1-10 5
2 11-19 6
2 20-30 7
2 31-39 8
2 40-48 9
2 49-57 10
2 58-66 11
2 67-74 12
2 75-83 13
2 84-89 14
3 1-3 14
3 4-5 15
4 1-7 15
4 8-16 16
4 17-19 17
5 1-2 17
6 1-4 17
7 1 18
8 1-2 18
9 1-4 18
9 5-11 19
9 12-19 20
9 20-27 21
9 28-35 22
9 36-44 23
9 45-52 24
9 52a-59 25
9 60-68 26
10 1 27
11 1-7 27
11 8-13 28
12 1-8 29
13 1-7 30
13 8-15 31
13 16-24 32
13 25-32 33
13 33-37a 34
13 38-40 35
14 1-6 36
15 1-8 37
15 9-16 38
16 1-7 39
16 8-15 40
16 16-22 41
16 23-29 42
16 30-36 43
16 37-44 44
16 45-49 45
16 50-51 46
17 1-3 46

Indexed terms

Names:
Ball, William Macmahon, 1901-1986

Access and use

Conditions Governing Access:
Access conditions may apply to this collection, please refer to the collection's catalogue record for further information (http://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn1332360).
Conditions Governing Use:
Copying and publishing of unpublished manuscript material is subject to copyright restrictions. For such material, written permission to publish must be obtained from the copyright holder(s). Copying of unpublished material for research purposes is permissible 50 years after the death of the creator of the material.
Preferred citation:
Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of William Macmahon Ball, National Library of Australia, MS 7851, [series/file number]'.
Location of this collection:
Parkes Place
Canberra ACT 2600, Australia
Contact: