Joseph Ball

Sir George Joseph Ball, KBE (1885–1961) was a British barrister, intelligence officer, political operator, government administrator, and industrialist.

Early years George Joseph Ball originally trained as a barrister and was a member of Gray's Inn.

MI5 Ball was recruited into MI5 in 1915, after the outbreak of World War I. He served in key operational roles with MI5 until 1927, and was believed to have played a significant role in the creation of the forged Zinoviev letter in 1924, an episode which led to the defeat of the Labour Party government headed by Ramsay MacDonald.

Conservative Party administrator Ball was a 'fervent political supporter' of the Conservative Party. Among the young people associated with him during the 1930s were Guy Burgess and Graham Russell Mitchell. Ball's group infiltrated the Labour Party.

He was knighted in the 1936 New Year Honours for political and public services.

Political operator During the 1930s, and into the early years of World War II, he developed and coordinated many links among Britons who supported Nazi Germany, and arranged back channels to key leadership figures in the Third Reich, as well as with Fascist Italy.

For several years a strong backer and close associate of the Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who came to power in 1937 following the resignation of Stanley Baldwin, Ball had worked from the mid-1930s to secretly undermine anti-Nazi Conservatives, including Winston Churchill, as well as figures in the Liberal and Labour Parties who opposed far-right totalitarian regimes in Europe. This paper attacked Leslie Hore-Belisha, the only Jewish cabinet minister, forcing his resignation in 1940.

Later years, legacy In 1948 Ball was appointed a director of Consolidated Gold Fields. He later joined the South African and Rhodesian mining group Lonrho, which had been founded in 1909. He assumed a leadership role, and brought in Tiny Rowland in 1961, shortly before his own death, to run that company.

Ball was a skilled fly fisherman, who engaged in debate over optimal fishing techniques.

Although Ball made efforts to destroy the papers at Conservative Central Office outlining his own role there, as well as his personal papers; some papers have survived, and have been housed at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University since August 2000. Since 1990, historians and writers have increased the amount of published material available on Ball's life and career.

The character "Joseph Balcombe", from the 2009 film Glorious 39, by Stephen Poliakoff, is based upon Ball; the role was played by actor Jeremy Northam.