BALL, JAMES

James was a son of Joseph Ball; the husband of Mary Ann Ball (nee Brassington), and the father of Harry Ball (who also fell in the war). Another son also served, Driver J. Ball, and survived the war.

Poor Mary was to lose her husband and two sons during the two World Wars.

Photograph: Ancestry.co.uk submitted by anthony1vk2r6qkup00a69o5l401vgtbpvk

Before the war James was employed as a moulder at Messrs Bamford in Uttoxeter. This was a skilled job in the foundry creating the sand moulds for casting components, name plates and suchlike. James worked very hard for a living.

These pictures were taken at Blists Hill Open Air Museum in the Ironbridge Gorge. They show typical working conditions in a Moulder’s Shop and the tools of the trade at the time. Scenes and equipment like this will have been familiar to James when working at Bamfords.

James and Mary lived at 7 Bradley Street, Uttoxeter.

They had 9 children altogether.

Bradley Street, Uttoxeter

7 Bradley Street, where James, Mary and nine children lived

James had enlisted in the North Staffordshire Regiment by the 7th April 1915. Sergeant Armett had signed him up in Uttoxeter with many other Uttoxeter men. Ultimately he achieved the rank of Corporal.

James was present at some of the best known and iconic battles of the war. He went to the Western Front of France and Belgium on 18th July 1915, which means he will have been at the battle of Loos, where the British used poison gas against the Germans for the first time. He will have also taken part in the Battle of the Somme in July 1916, the Spring Offensives of 1917 and 3rd Ypres (Passchendaele) in the autumn of 1917.

At some stage during this service at the front he was wounded. He was also buried when a shell burst nearby. His comrades must have dug him out because he survived the experience. It will, however, have been a traumatising experience.

In January 1918 the Uttoxeter Advertiser reported the fact that he was dangerously ill in hospital at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He had spent Christmas at home and had only returned to his unit on New Years Eve. At the time of returning to his unit he had been quite well.

He was discharged from the army on 3rd April 1918 suffering from shell shock and, unfortunately, he did not recover his health.

His medal card3recorded that he had been discharged under ‘Para 392(XV1a)’, which defines this cause of discharge as follows:

A soldier found medically unfit to re-engage and any man discharged for insanity, irrespective of his length of service will be dealt with under this heading.

We do not know what happened to him between April and November 1918, but the Uttoxeter Advertiser tells us that his wife visited him in Hartshill Infirmary on the day he died. He passed away shortly after she had left.

James Ball’s grave is easily seen from the entrance gates in Uttoxeter Cemetery.

The dedication at the bottom of his headstone reads

‘His end was peace’.

These are poignant words when one thinks that he was discharged from the army with shellshock.

James was awarded the 1915 Star, Victory Medal and British Medal for his service. Strangely, his Medal card shows that at some stage these medals were returned and then re-issued to his widow3, but it gives no explanation.

In addition, James received the Silver War Badge, which was actually a brooch and would have looked like this:

Photo: Long Long Trail website

These brooches are sometimes wrongly referred to as the Silver Wound Badge. They were and given to all military personnel who had served at home or overseas during the war, and who had been discharged under King’s Regulations. The most common reason for receiving one of these brooches was the serviceman being rendered physically unfit permanently.

One of James’ and Mary’s sons, Harry, also died in the war. See Harry’s page for details.

Moving forward to the Second World War, Mary faced further heartbreak when another son, George, died in 1945 in Burma.