Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1932 - 1939 (Creation)
Level of description
Extent and medium
2 boxes, 15cm
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Born Essex 1892; died Yorkshire 1984
Edward Balls was involved in Quaker relief work in Europe and Russia during World War I and began work in a Stevenage nursery in 1926 where he studied alpines and designed and planted a number of rock gardens, including an open air reptillary at Regents Park Zoo. During the 1930s he became a professional plant hunter, going on expeditions to Persia, Turkey, Morocco, Greece and Mexico and his collections of herbarium specimens were sent to Kew, Edinburgh and gardens abroad. His accounts of his often dangerous journeys appeared in the Gardeners Chronicle and he wrote in many other journals. The Imperial Agricultural Bureau sent him to South America in 1939 to collect plants including wild and cultivated potatoes. Balls discovered new species including Verbascum ballsii and Verbena ballsii. He was horticulturalist at the Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Garden from 1949 until his retirement in 1960, specialising the cultivation of native plants in desert and rock gardens, eventually returning to Britain in 1978.
Sources: R. Desmond ‘Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturalists’; Times obituary 9/11/84
D.W.
Repository
Archival history
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
Box 1 of 2
• GB 235 BEK/1/01-51: Persia 1932: Correspondence from E.K. Balls to J. MacQueen Cowan and William Wright Smith, field notes, list of specimens despatched, and list of shareholders regarding Balls’ expedition to Persia in 1932, 76 pp., typescript and ms., 1932.
• GB 235 BEK/2/01-78: Correspondence from E.K. Balls to J. MacQueen Cowan and to William Wright Smith, field notes, list of specimens despatched, and list of shareholders regarding Balls’ expedition to Turkey in 1933, 78 pp., typescript and ms., 1933.
• GB 235 BEK/3/001-111: Correspondence from E.K. Balls to J. MacQueen Cowan and to William Wright Smith, field notes, list of specimens despatched, and list of shareholders regarding Balls’ expedition to Turkey in 1934, 111 pp., typescript and ms., 1934.
• GB 235 BEK/4/01-38: Correspondence from E.K. Balls to J. MacQueen Cowan and to William Wright Smith, field notes, list of specimens despatched, list of subscribers, and “A Plant Collecting Expedition into Kurdistan,” an advertisement for shareholders regarding Balls’ expedition to Turkey in 1935, 38 pp., typescript and ms., 1934–1935.
Box 2 of 2
• GB 235 BEK/5/01-21: Correspondence from E.K. Balls to J. MacQueen Cowan and to William Wright Smith, field notes, and list of specimens despatched regarding Balls’ expedition to Morocco in 1936, 21 pp., typescript and ms., 1936.
• GB 235 BEK/6/01-23: Correspondence from E.K. Balls to William Wright Smith, field notes, list of subscribers, and list of seeds and specimens regarding Balls’ expedition to Greece in 1937, 24 pp., typescript 1937.
• GB 235 BEK/7/01-37: Correspondence from E.K. Balls to J. MacQueen Cowan and to William Wright Smith, field notes, and list of specimens despatched regarding Balls’ expedition to Mexico in 1938, 38 pp., typescript and ms., 1938.
• GB 235 BEK/8/01-33: Typescript and ms., correspondence from E.K. Balls to J. MacQueen Cowan and to William Wright Smith, field notes, and list of specimens despatched regarding Balls’ expedition to the Andes, 1938–1939, 33 pp., 1938–1939.
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
Accruals
System of arrangement
Conditions of access and use area
Conditions governing access
Collection is open to researchers by appointment, see (right click, open link in new tab:) https://www.rbge.org.uk/science-and-conservation/library-and-archives/visiting-the-library/
Conditions governing reproduction
Permission required from RBGE
Language of material
- English
Script of material
Language and script notes
Physical characteristics and technical requirements
Finding aids
Allied materials area
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
Related units of description
Notes area
Alternative identifier(s)
Access points
Subject access points
Place access points
Name access points
- Collins, Ernest Jacob (1878-1939) (Subject)
- Cowan, John MacQueen (Subject)
- Smith, Sir William Wright (Subject)
Genre access points
Description control area
Description identifier
Institution identifier
Rules and/or conventions used
Status
Level of detail
Dates of creation revision deletion
Language(s)
Script(s)
Sources
Archivist's note
description prepared by M.R. and L.P.