There can be no doubt that Clifford Ballard was the most important figure in British orthodontics during the 20th century and a significant influence in orthodontic thought throughout the world during the post war period. In his upbringing he had the advantage of being the eldest son of Frederick Ballard. The latter, although holding no dental qualification, was by 1948 regarded as ‘the voice of British dentistry’ by Aneurin Bevan, minister of health in the post-war Labour Government and chief architect of the UK National Health Service. It was because of Frederick Ballard’s influence that dentistry was included in the NHS. Clifford Ballard was born on 26 June 1910 in Willesden, Middlesex. His mother was Eliza Susannah Ballard née Wilkinson. He attended Kilburn Grammar School and entered the Royal Dental Hospital School of Dental Surgery in 1930. This was the same year the remarkable Corisande Smyth was appointed there as its first demonstrator in orthodontics and which led to the introduction of its first course of undergraduate lectures in the subject the following year. After gaining his LDS in 1934, Clifford joined his father’s practice before attending Charing Cross Hospital to achieve medical qualifications. In 1940, he returned to the Royal to become a full-time member of its teaching staff and where he spent the next 12 years teaching undergraduates and formulating his ideas on orthodontics. During the Second World War, as well as having medical responsibility for a number of aircraft factories, he became orthodontist to Middlesex County Council. It was during this time that he started working as a clinical assistant at the upper respiratory clinic of the Victoria Hospital for Children, which would be merged with St George’s Hospital in 1948. Here he worked with the ENT surgeon Eric Gwynne-Evans, and it was Ballard’s experiences in the management of children with respiratory problems which focused his attention on the activities of the orofacial musculature and their importance in determining the form of the dental arches. In 1936 Ballard’s father, later to be awarded an OBE for services to dentistry, had been elected as one of two members who served on the dental board of the General Medical Council to represent dentists registered under the terms of the 1921 Dentists Act. By 1947 Frederick was chairman of the dental board’s postgraduate education committee as well as a member of the boards of both University College Hospital and the Eastman Dental Hospital. It was therefore not surprising that, in 1948, Clifford Ballard was appointed head of the orthodontic department of the newly created Institute of Dental Surgery at the Eastman, where he remained until his retirement in 1972. He immediately established the first UK postgraduate course in orthodontics. In the same year he published his seminal paper ‘Some bases for aetiology and diagnosis in orthodontics’ (*Dental Record* 68: 133-145 [June] 1948), the first of a series which over the next 10 years would place orthodontic treatment on a sound scientific basis. Thereafter a World Health Organization travelling fellowship led to him lecturing extensively throughout the world including Europe, the United States, Canada and Australia. In the mid-1950s, with several of his former postgraduates established in NHS consultant orthodontist posts, he and John Hovell of the Royal Dental Hospital instituted an annual postgraduate meeting at the Eastman, which led in 1962 to the founding of the Consultant Orthodontist Group (COG). Originally intended to bring colleagues up to date with the latest orthodontic research and techniques, the COG soon provided an important influence on consultant training via the specialist advisory committee of the Joint Committee for Higher Training in Dentistry when this was established in 1969. Ballard was a civil consultant to the Royal Air Force for many years. He served as editor of the British Society for the Study of Orthodontics’ *Transactions* for seven years before becoming its president in 1957. Amongst many honours, he received both the fellowship of the Faculty of Dental Surgery and the diploma in orthodontics at the Royal College of Surgeons of England without examination when they were established. He gave the 1967 Northcroft Memorial lecture of the British Society for the Study of Orthodontics and received the Royal College of Surgeons of England’s Colyer gold medal. Despite his somewhat stern exterior, Clifford Ballard had a keen sense of humour, was a kindly and caring man, hospitable, loyal and tolerant towards his staff and students. Married to Muriel Mable (née Burling) with a son and daughter, he and his wife retired to Salisbury in 1972, and it was only with great reluctance that Ballard was persuaded to return to London in 1990 to be the first recipient of the medal of the Consultant Orthodontist Group, which bears his name. Ballard died on 16 July 1997. He was 87.