Papers of Lieutenant-General John Archibald Ballard (1829-1880) which cover his service as part of the Ottoman forces during the Crimean War and his service for the East India Company in the Persian Campaign and Indian Mutiny. His later letters cover his time as Mint Master at Bombay [Mumbai] and his family life.

Related material:
Additional papers and medals of John Archibald Ballard are held by the National Army Museum, Templar Study Centre under references 1994-05-400 and 1994-04-528.

Administrative / biographical background
John Archibald Ballard was born 20 June 1829 in Portbury, Somerset. Educated at the East India Company’s military college at Addiscombe, Croydon, he was commissioned into the Bombay Engineers in 1850. In 1854 having returned from India on sick leave and attracted by news of the conflict with Russia from the Danubian provinces, Ballard travelled to Bulgaria and was invested by Omar Pasha [Omer Pasha Latas] as a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Turkish army. He took part in the successful defence of Silistria where he was the only British officer present and commanded the skirmishers during the subsequent attack and capture of the Russian position at Giurgevo. For his service he received the thanks of the British government and was rewarded with a gold medal and sword of honour by the Turkish government. Ballard continued in Turkish service at Eupatoria [Yvepatoria] and on an expedition to Kerch. He then commanded a brigade in Omar Pasha’s Transcaucasian campaign for the relief of Kars and fought at the battle of the Inguri River. Having been decorated with the order of Companion of the Bath and the Ottoman Order of the Medjidie, Ballard returned to India in 1856 as a Subaltern of Engineers. He served as Assistant-Quarter-Master-General in the Persian campaign (1856-57) and in the same capacity with the Rajputana field force during the Indian mutiny. He was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in 1858. Ballard returned to Britain in 1861 and married Joanna Scott Moncrieff in Edinburgh, they had two sons and four daughters. The newly married couple returned to India in 1861 where Ballard was appointed as Mint Master at Bombay. He later presided over the Board of Trustees of the Bombay Port July 1873 to May 1876. In 1879 he retired from the army as a Lieutenant-General and returned to Britain. He died suddenly during a tour of Greece on 2 April 1880 while visiting Thermopylae and was buried in Athens.