William Ball

William Ball (4 November 1862 – 1935) was a British workers union member, jailed for his support of women's suffrage, and subject of a WSPU pamphlet, "Torture In An English Prison", which described his experience being force-fed such that his health deteriorated and he was sent to a lunatic asylum.

Life William Ball was born in Coton, Staffordshire to Thomas Ball, a gardener, and Elizabeth Ball. In Birmingham in 1891, he married Miriam Jennie Warick, with whom he had five children.

He was an athlete and a "championship sprinter" of the Midlands. According to the WSPU pamphlet Torture In An English Prison, neither he nor his family had any history of mental illness. The WSPU handbill 'Torture in an English Prison' and the leaflet The Case of William Ball can be seen at the Museum of London.

The Men's League for Women's Suffrage was told about the case at a March 1912 meeting in the Queen's Hall, Langham Place, London. and outrage at the treatment of Ball was supported by influential male speakers: George Lansbury, M.P. for Bow and Bromley (Labour), Charles Mansell-Moullin and Victor Duval (brother of Elsie Duval), a founder of the Men's Political Union group.

Ball gets a specific mention in the National Archive records of the 1,000 women's suffrage supporters arrested and imprisoned during 1906–1914.