BALL, Albert Thomas (1864-1941)

The well-known Secretary of the South African Mutual Life Insurance Company of Bloemfontein, Mr. A. T. BALL, is the youngest son of the late Captain W. W. Ball, who came from Ireland over sixty years ago, and is a descendant of a well-known Dublin family, which for three generations in succession contributed Mayors to Dublin in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Mr. Ball's father was a Councillor in Cape Town in the early sixties.

The principal part of his education was conducted at Swellendam in the Cape Colony and leaving school at the age of fifteen he spent some time in the service of the Standard Bank.

In 1883 he entered the office of the South African Life Society at a time when the whole staff consisted of the secretary, cashier, accountant, and a clerk.

In 1891 Mr. Ball, accompanied by Mr. Bilse, came to Bloemfontein and opened a branch of the Society in Kellner’s Colonnade, and two years later the present fine buildings on the Market Square were completed. It is not necessary to mention here the immense business now being done by the South African Mutual, but there can be no doubt that Mr. Ball has done his share in building up the Society to its present flourishing condition.

In 1894 Mr. Ball married Miss Jacobsz, youngest daughter of the late Mr. Jan Jacobsz of Gevelkrans, Senekal, one of the old Free State Voortrekkers, who came from Graaf Reinet in 1837, when the country was still practically a wilderness.

Source: Men of the Times, published by The Transvaal Publishing Company, Johannesburg, Cape Town & London, printed by Eyre and Spottiswood, His Majesty’s Printers, 1906, p.529