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 ultimately rose to the rank of general. He served with the Malacca field force in 1832-1833, and, as brigade major, in the campaign against Kurnool in 1839, being present at the battle of Zorapore on 18 Oct. He was staff officer of the Madras forces in the war against China in 1840-2, and took part in the principal actions of the campaign, and was elected joint agent for captured public property; he was also receiver of the ransom payable under the treaty of Nankin, and he settled and paid the hong debts due by the Chinese merchants. From 1843 till 1866 he was consul at Shanghai. He received his commission as captain in the artillery corps on 26 March 1844, and obtained the brevet rank of field officer in the artillery on 8 Oct. 1847. From 1849 till 1857 he was an acting stipendiary member of the military board at the Madras Presidency, and during this time was employed as a commissioner to inquire into the Madras public works establishments. He was made C.B.in 1854. He received the brevet rank of lieutenant-colonel of the Madras artillery in 1856, in 1857 he became colonel, and in 1858 attained the regimental rank of lieutenant-colonel of artillery. In 1860 he was specially commissioned by the viceroy, Lord Canning, to inquire into the condition of the native and European troops forming the garrison of Burmah. He was a member of the military finance commission in 1859 and 1860, and from 1860 till 1862 he was chief of the military finance department formed to ensure economy in military expenditure. His labours in this connection met with high commendation from the Indian government, and after his return to England he was employed in 1866 on the recruiting commission. The thoroughness of his work on this commission led to his nomination in 1867 as assistant to the controller-in-chief at the war office; he filled this post from 1868 till 1871, and was created K.C.B. in 1870. He was promoted major-general in 1866, lieutenant-general in 1874, and general in 1877. In 1872 he was elected liberal M.P. for Kincardineshire, and held the seat until 1892. In 1875 he supplied a preface on the 'commercial, political, and military advantages in all Asia' to a collection of articles and letters on 'Trade and Salt in India Free,' reprinted from the 'Times.' He died in London on 12 March 1894 at 6 Cleveland Gardens, S.W. He married in 1848 Charlotte Isabella, the third daughter of Joseph Hume, M.P.

 BALFOUR, THOMAS GRAHAM (1813–1891), physician, belonged to the family of Pilrig, and was born in Edinburgh on 18 March 1813. He was son of John Balfour, a merchant of Leith, and his wife Helen, daughter of Thomas Buchanan of Ardoch. He was great-grandson of James Balfour, professor of moral philosophy at Edinburgh in 1754, and of Robert Whytt [q. v.], the celebrated medical writer and professor of physiology at Edinburgh. He graduated M.D. at Edinburgh in 1834, and in 1836 entered the Army Medical Service and was immediately engaged in the first four volumes of the 'Statistics of the British Army,' From 1840 to 1848 he served as assistant surgeon in the grenadier guards. In 1857 he was appointed secretary to Sidney Herbert's committee on the sanitary state of the army, and in 1859 he became deputy inspector-general in charge of the new statistical branch of the army medical department, a post which he held for fourteen years. He was elected F.R.S. on 3 June 1858 and in 1860 a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London. In 1887 he was appointed honorary physician to the queen. He was placed on half-pay as surgeon-general in 1876, and in his forty years of service had done much to improve the sanitary condition of the forces. He married in 1856 Georgina, daughter of George Prentice of Armagh, and had one son, Graham Balfour. He died at Coombe Lodge, Wimbledon, on 17 Jan. 1891.

 BALL, JOHN (1818–1889), man of science, politician, and Alpine traveller, born in Dublin on 20 Aug. 1818, was eldest son of [q. v.], judge of the court of common pleas in Ireland, and Jane Sherlock of Butlerstown Castle, co. Waterford. In his early childhood he showed a precocious taste for out-of-door observation and works on natural science. "When in his seventh year he was taken to Switzerland, he was deeply affected by the view of the Alps from the Jura. He wrote in after life, 'For long years that scene remained impressed on my mind, whether asleep or awake, and perhaps nothing has had so great an influence on my entire life.' In the following year, at Ems, the child's chief occupation was measuring,