DOI Heft:
Nr. 244 (June, 1917)
DOI Artikel:Hind, Charles Lewis; Ball, Wilfrid [Gefeierte Pers.]: In memoriam: Wilfrid Ball, water-colour painter
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43464#0278
In Memoriam: Wilfrid Ball
his bodily presence passed out of my life for
ever.
For in May I went to live in the country, and
was rather out of touch with things ; and when
I thought of Wilfrid Ball I thought of him as
the English Village Painter of these days, of
the village green, the village pond, lanes, woods,
and lakes, for he loved to paint water, and loved
the serene simplicity of Bosham, the Hamble
river, and Lymington. I thought of him easing
the agony of many of the days through which
we have lived since August 1914 in trying to
pursue the happy avocations of peace-time.
Then one day—it was February 19 of this
year—I received a letter from his wife which
startled, shocked, and grieved me. And yet it
was a beautiful death—a death one may envy.
It may be summed up in the following brief
announcement : “ Wilfrid Ball, R.E., died at
Khartoum on February 14th, 1917, from heat
apoplexy, aged 64.”
That was the bald, cruel fact, and the details,
the steps that led up to it, are as follows. Since
the war began, anxious to serve his country, he
had taken up, and performed with a will,
uncongenial war work. While he was doing
this news came to him that the firm of accoun-
tants with whom he had been associated as a
youth were short-handed at their Cairo branch.
The need for extra help was imperative as most
of their staff had joined the army. Wilfrid Ball
saw his duty clear, and, without any fuss, left
England for Cairo in September 1916, to become
an accountant again at the age of 63. He had
been there but a short time when a message
was received from the Commandant at Khar-
toum saying it was absolutely necessary that
some one should be sent at once to audit the
military accounts. Ball volunteered, knowing
well that, owing to the excessive heat, the risks
a man of his age ran were grave. The rest we
know. He did his duty. No one can do more.
All his friends agree, entirely and proudly, with
a sentence in his wife’s letter to me : “ It was
as much a sacrifice as if he had died in the
trenches.”
The illustrations that accompany this article
illustrate admirably the purpose and the per-
"NEAR SOUTHBOURNE’'
154
(The property of Miss S. N. Bolton) water-colour by Wilfrid ball
his bodily presence passed out of my life for
ever.
For in May I went to live in the country, and
was rather out of touch with things ; and when
I thought of Wilfrid Ball I thought of him as
the English Village Painter of these days, of
the village green, the village pond, lanes, woods,
and lakes, for he loved to paint water, and loved
the serene simplicity of Bosham, the Hamble
river, and Lymington. I thought of him easing
the agony of many of the days through which
we have lived since August 1914 in trying to
pursue the happy avocations of peace-time.
Then one day—it was February 19 of this
year—I received a letter from his wife which
startled, shocked, and grieved me. And yet it
was a beautiful death—a death one may envy.
It may be summed up in the following brief
announcement : “ Wilfrid Ball, R.E., died at
Khartoum on February 14th, 1917, from heat
apoplexy, aged 64.”
That was the bald, cruel fact, and the details,
the steps that led up to it, are as follows. Since
the war began, anxious to serve his country, he
had taken up, and performed with a will,
uncongenial war work. While he was doing
this news came to him that the firm of accoun-
tants with whom he had been associated as a
youth were short-handed at their Cairo branch.
The need for extra help was imperative as most
of their staff had joined the army. Wilfrid Ball
saw his duty clear, and, without any fuss, left
England for Cairo in September 1916, to become
an accountant again at the age of 63. He had
been there but a short time when a message
was received from the Commandant at Khar-
toum saying it was absolutely necessary that
some one should be sent at once to audit the
military accounts. Ball volunteered, knowing
well that, owing to the excessive heat, the risks
a man of his age ran were grave. The rest we
know. He did his duty. No one can do more.
All his friends agree, entirely and proudly, with
a sentence in his wife’s letter to me : “ It was
as much a sacrifice as if he had died in the
trenches.”
The illustrations that accompany this article
illustrate admirably the purpose and the per-
"NEAR SOUTHBOURNE’'
154
(The property of Miss S. N. Bolton) water-colour by Wilfrid ball