Born at New Barnet on 9 October 1881, he was the son of William Henry Girling Ball who was in business as a carpet warehouseman in Gresham Street, EC. Educated at Merchant Taylors' School, then in Charterhouse Square, from 1894 to 1899, he entered St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he quickly made a name for himself, acting as house surgeon to Sir Anthony Bowlby, winning the Luther Holden research scholarship for surgical pathology, and becoming a demonstrator of pathology in 1907. He was elected assistant surgeon to the hospital in 1912, and in due course was promoted to surgeon. He was warden of the residential college for students from 1913 to 1920, and from 1925 was dean of the medical school. When he took office as warden in 1913 the St Bartholomew's medical school was conducted practically on the lines laid down when it was founded by David Pitcairn and John Abernethy about the year 1796. It was independent, though it had a loose connexion with the hospital; in fact, a proprietary school carried on for the benefit and at the sole risk of the teachers. When Sir Girling Ball went to take up war work in 1939 he left a school entirely reorganized and conducted on modern lines. A charter of incorporation had been obtained to make the school a medical college and to provide for the representation of the governors of the hospital upon its council; the school had become affiliated to the medical faculty of London University, and had acquired the site in Charterhouse Square formerly occupied by Merchant Taylors' School. Sir Girling Ball was mainly, but not wholly, instrumental in bringing about these changes. He was very popular with the students, and was reputed to have said publicly: "I would do anything for my boys, and my boys would do anything for me." At the Royal College of Surgeons he gained the Jacksonian prize in 1909 with an essay on the treatment of surgical affections by vaccines and antitoxins; he was a Hunterian professor of surgery and pathology in 1912, and a member of the council from 1934. He was vice-president 1943-45 and Bradshaw lecturer in 1944. He was also honorary secretary of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1920 and was elected president in 1938. He was dean of the medical faculty of the senate of London University. In 1908 he joined the newly formed territorial force as captain, RAMC, *à la suite*, was called up in August 1914, served for a short time in France, and was then placed in command of the military wing at St Bartholomew's Hospital which was a part of No 1 London general hospital. He held an appointment as consulting surgeon to the RAF. During the 1939-45 war he was group officer for Sector 3 of the London region under the emergency medical service (Ministry of Health). He was created a Knight Bachelor in 1938. He married Violet Isobel, daughter of William Cavander, in 1912. Lady Ball survived him, but without children. Girling Ball died at Hill End Hospital, St Albans, on 16 July 1945, aged 65. A memorial service was held at St Bartholomew-the-Great on 25 July. He had practised before the war at 77 Wimpole Street. Girling Ball was a man of great physique and character. Under a brusque, commanding manner and an air of philistinism he hid administrative and intellectual abilities of uncommon quality. He made himself an invaluable member of all the committees on which he served through a mastery of the details of their business. One of his greatest contributions to British medicine was the part he played in organizing the emergency medical service in the war of 1939-45. Sir Francis Fraser, its director-general, wrote of him: "When war threatened Sir Girling Ball was an energetic member of the committees on whose advice the emergency hospital scheme and medical services were planned. He was largely responsible for shaping the London sectors, and the important part taken by medical schools and teaching hospitals of London in staffing and equipping the upgraded and expanded hospitals in the sectors was to an extent due to his guidance and help. Throughout the war, as chairman of the sector hospital officers, he was a source of strength to the headquarters staff of the emergency medical services in Whitehall, and by his example, leadership, and efficiency he was responsible to a great extent for the magnificent service rendered by their hospitals to the people of London in the years of air raid attacks. Ball helped in many ways the moulding of the medical profession and its institutions into a service for the nation." Ball was an excellent general surgeon, with special interest in urology. Publications:- *Diseases of the kidney*, with Geoffrey Evans, FRCP London, 1932, 424 pp. General surgical pathology and bacteriology, General surgery, Injuries and diseases of tendons and tendon sheaths, fasciae, bursae and muscles, Gonorrhoea. Sections 1, 2, 4, and 28, of *Surgery, a textbook by various authors,* edited by G E Gask and H W Wilson. London, 1920, pp. 1-175,283-299, 1179-1186. Some cystoscopic appearances in tuberculosis of the urinary tract. *Brit J Surg*. 1923-24, 10, 326. The treatment of simple papilloma of the bladder by fulguration. *Ibid*. 1924-25, 11, 760. Leiomyoma of the stomach. *Ibid*. 1938-39, 26, 942.