George Ball spent thirty years building a life, a business and a large family in the Colac district, yet today his final resting place has been lost to history.
Born in 1834 at Colne in Lancashire, England, George was the son of Thomas Ball, a weaver, and Elizabeth Keen. At just sixteen years of age he arrived in New South Wales, spending eight years there before travelling to Victoria where he met Anne Bayliss, a young widow raising four small children.
They married in Colac, in 1858 and together created a bustling blended family. Seven children were born to George and Anne, including twins in 1872. Their happiness was tempered by tragedy when their first daughter, little Elizabeth, died from diphtheria before her third birthday.
George earned a reputation as a skilled dry stone waller and was contracted by Hugh Murray on his Ti Tree Station. During this period the Ball family became linked to one of the district’s most famous mysteries when George’s stepson discovered human remains later identified as those of a murdered shepherd missing for fifteen years.
In later years George entered the hotel trade, obtaining the licence for the Prince of Wales Hotel in Colac in 1878. He also financed another hotel venture for a family member. But heavy debts and crippling interest rates forced George into insolvency the following year.
A member of the Colac Oddfellows for more than thirty years, George spent his final years in Camperdown where wife Anne was licensee of the Hampden Hotel. After thirty years of marriage, George died in 1888 from cirrhosis of the liver.
His remains were brought back to Colac for burial. George, Anne, their daughters Harriet and little Elizabeth all lie in unmarked graves, their final resting places unknown.
Research by Raye Loughnan
Story by Mary Day and Lynette Genua

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