Valentine Ball was an Irish geologist, son of Robert Ball and a brother of Sir Robert Ball.
15 Facts About Valentine Ball
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Valentine Ball received his early education at Chester and later at the private schools of Dr Henry and Dr Benson at Dublin.
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Valentine Ball married Mary, the eldest daughter of John Stewart Moore, of Moyarget, Antrim in 1879.
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Valentine Ball died on 15 June 1895, having lived at 28 Waterloo Road since 1881.
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Valentine Ball was buried in Mount Jerome cemetery near the grave of his brother, Charles.
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Valentine Ball initially worked under Thomas Oldham, and was tasked with surveying coalfields and other minerals of economic value, discovering a number of coalfields in west Bengal and central India.
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Valentine Ball was made a Fellow of the Calcutta University in 1875.
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Valentine Ball was among the early scientists who visited Narcondam Island in 1873 along with James Wood-Mason.
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Valentine Ball was elected Fellow of the Geological Society of London in 1874.
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Valentine Ball was the president of the Royal Geological Society from 1882 to 1883 and served as the honorary secretary of the Royal Zoological Society of Ireland.
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Valentine Ball was elected to the Royal Society in 1882.
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Valentine Ball contributed to studies in ornithology and anthropology, arranging for his collections of Irish antiquities and Polynesian artifacts previously held in the Royal Irish Academy and Trinity College Dublin to be deposited in the new museum.
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Valentine Ball resigned from the directorship of the museum in 1895 due to ill-health.
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Valentine Ball was a regular contributor to Stray Feathers, the ornithological journal founded by Allan Octavian Hume.
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Valentine Ball's writings included Jungle-Life in India, The Diamonds, Coal, and Gold of India, The Economic Geology of India and numerous notes to the journals.