Celebrating Hampshire Historians

Ball, Charles

c1766 - 1823

Of the huge number of guidebooks for walkers published over the years, An Historical Account of Winchester, with Descriptive Walks published in 1817 by Charles Ball set a standard rarely bettered. His firm objective was to improve on previous attempts to recount the history and antiquities of Winchester, which he regarded as ‘little better than dry unconnected catalogues of historical fact, intermingled with a series of doubtful occurrences, or filled with tedious details of obsolete charters …’.  The Salisbury and Winchester Journal, 20 April 2018, published a glowing review, saying that it was ‘written in a style at once pleasing and perspicuous [sic]’ and pointing out that he ‘has not only availed himself of [works by] Trussell, Gale, Warton, Wavel[l],1 and Milner, and other writers of celebrity, but has also been favoured by several gentlemen friendly to his undertaking…’.

The book seems to have sprung from a ‘short article’ on the subject he wrote in the summer of 1815, which he showed to a prolific writer, John Britton FSA (1771-1857), who may have been visiting the city. In 1805, with Edward Brayley, Britton had published Topographical and Historical Description of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight in Volume 6 of the Beauties of England and Wales series. Although he was himself  in 1817 to publish a lavish new work, History and Antiquities of the Cathedral Church of Winchester (reprinted recently in a Scholar Select edition), he apparently ‘not only approved the idea [of Ball] , but suggested the immediate attention of the Author to some concise account, in the nature of a Guide , which might supply the vacancy in the Literary Annals of Winchester ‘. Britton’s literary career started in 1801 with The Beauties of Wiltshire and he was a leading light in the foundation of the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society in 1853 (32 years before the HFC). Some of his papers are in the Wiltshire Museum, Devizes.

Thus encouraged, Ball spent ‘a considerable time’ consulting a ‘number of curious and important works’, which decided him to write more than ‘a mere Guide’. As a result, his Historical Account is aptly entitled: as well as carefully written instructions for the walker, he included a huge amount of detail, with references to existing sources, as noted by the Salisbury and Winchester Journal. He also made critical comments: for example, on Milner: ‘[he] refers to Trussell for the limits of the city and suburbs which he states to have extended westward almost as far as the village of Week ; northward, to Hyde Barton ; eastward , to St. Magdalen Hill; and southward, to St. Cross. But it does not appear that any passage in Trussell can be found to warrant the reference.’ Occasionally, he cites primary sources, such as ‘Reports of the Hampshire Society for the Education of the Infant Poor’.

Ball’s descriptions are very clear and still useful. For example, for the house at 4, St Peter Street, which still stands, he wrote: ‘Lower down, on the opposite side of the street, is all that now remains of an edifice designed by Sir Christopher Wren for the residence of the Duchess of Portsmouth the favourite mistress of Charles the Second, and built by him about the same time that he was raising the magnificent palace at the west end of the city, of which we have already spoken . Till lately, a bust of the celebrated beauty for whom the house was erected stood over the entrance; this was however removed at the time the house was reduced to its present size in 1815’. Historic England tells a similar story.

A new edition of Ball’s book with an introduction by Christopher Mulvey was published by the University of Winchester Press in 2009. He suggests that John Keats probably had a copy when he came to Winchester in the year after it was published, and where he composed Ode to Autumn.  Little is known of Ball’s life, but Mulvey points out that he was almost certainly the man of that name buried at Micheldever on 7 June 1823 aged 57 (Bishops’ Transcripts, FamilySearch). Research by CHH identifies him as the son of William of London, gent, who went up to St John's College, Oxford, in 1783, aged 18. He then followed a familiar track of BA, MA, and even B & DD. He was ordained deacon in 1787 and priest in 1792. His church career was, however, modest: he served as curate at Harmondsworth and West Drayton in Middlesex in 1787 and in 1792 at nearby Harlington (now mainly under Heathrow!), but is not recorded thereafter in the C of E Clergy Database.

Sources

• BL Catalogue

• John Britton, Wikipedia

• Claire Bolton, A Winchester Bookshop and Bindery, 1729-1994, 2ed., 1994, Winchester.

• Alumni Oxoniensis

Portrait

None. A print from the Fourth Walk of the book (p. 191) shows Jewry Street, with the Gaolhouse on the right and in the distance on the left the theatre, by C.F. Porden.

Contribution to county’s history

He left a solid descriptive account of the topography of Winchester based on historical research.

Relevant published works

• An Historical Account of Winchester, with Descriptive Walks, 1818, Winchester, James Robbins; 2009, Winchester University Press (with an introduction by Christopher Mulvey)

• It is also available on Google Books and there is a Scholar Select edition of 2015

Critical Comments

Ball is an excellent example of the scholar-cleric.

Other Comments

He should be disambiguated from the namesake African-American slave, author of Slavery in the United States (1836).

Contributor

Barry Shurlock, 6 June 2025.

Key Words

Winchester, guidebooks, James Robbins, John Britton, John Keats

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