Murray Hone Ball (1939 - 2017)

Born 26 Jan 1939 in Feilding, Manawatu-Wanganui, New Zealand

Ancestors

Died 12 Mar 2017 at age 78 in Gisborne, New Zealand

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Biography

Murray Ball is Notable.

Murray Hone Ball ONZM (26 January 1939 – 12 March 2017) was the son of Kelly Ball and Lola Knyvett.

He was a New Zealand cartoonist who became known for his Stanley the Palaeolithic Hero (the longest running cartoon in Punch magazine), Bruce the Barbarian, All the King's Comrades (also in Punch) and the long-running Footrot Flats comic series. In the 2002 Queen's Birthday and Golden Jubilee Honours, Ball was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services as a cartoonist.

Ball was born in Feilding in 1939; his father was All Black rugby player Nelson Ball. He grew up in New Zealand before spending some years in Australia and South Africa, where he attended Parktown Boys' High School and finished his education. He played for the Junior All Blacks in 1959 as a first five-eights. As a young man he worked for the Dominion newspaper in Wellington and the Manawatu Times before becoming a freelance cartoonist and moving to Scotland, where he found work with publishers DC Thomson, of Dundee.

He developed his character Stanley and had it published in the influential English humour-magazine Punch. Stanley the Palaeolithic Hero featured a caveman who wore glasses and struggled with the Neolithic environment. It became the longest-running strip in Punch's history, and other English and non-English speaking countries syndicated it. Ball continued to contribute to Punch after returning with his family to New Zealand.

Ball's early cartoons often had political overtones (his mid-70s UK strips included All the King's Comrades, and he described himself in the introduction to The Sisterhood (1993) as a socialist. Stanley often expresses left-wing attitudes.

Ball lived with his wife Pam^[1] on a rural property in Gisborne, New Zealand. In an interview on Radio New Zealand National on 27 January 2016, Pam said that Murray's health had been poor for the last six years and that he was suffering from dementia. Longtime friend and collaborator Tom Scott said that on Sunday, 12 March 2017^[2], he had been advised that Ball had died.

Sources

1. ↑ England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1916-2005

   Name: Murray H Ball

   Registration Date: Jul 1964

   [Aug 1964]

   [Sep 1964]

   Registration Quarter: Jul-Aug-Sep

   Registration District: Surrey Mid Eastern

   Inferred County: Surrey

   Spouse: Pamela M Bennett

   Volume Number: 3g

   Page Number: 564

2. ↑ NZBDM DEATH:2017/6912 Ball Murray Hone DOB:26 January 1939

• Wikipedia contributors. (2020, December 17). Murray Ball. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 23:08, January 6, 2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Murray_Ball&oldid=994737633

• IMDb entry

• Timeline on the Footrot Flats website