Clifford Ballard

Clifford Ballard (1910 – 1997)

Clifford Ballard was born in 1910. His father, Frederick Ballard, was a politically active dentist who was influential in having orthodontic treatment included in the NHS. After gaining an LDS in 1934, Clifford joined his father’s practice before attending Charing Cross Hospital to study medicine. In 1940, having qualified in medicine he became a full-time member of the teaching staff at the Royal and was appointed as the orthodontist to Middlesex County Council. He also started working as clinical assistant at the Upper Respiratory Clinic of the Victoria Hospital for Children with the ENT surgeon, Mr E. Gwynne Evans. It was Ballard’s experiences with Gwynne Evans that focused his attention on respiratory function and the activities of the oro-facial musculature. He later went on to publish many articles on this topic. He developed a classification of malocclusion based on incisor position and developed the Ballard Conversion to determine the skeletal position of the jaws.

In 1948 Ballard was appointed Head of the Orthodontic Department of the newly created Institute of Dental Surgery at the Eastman Dental Hospital, where he remained until his retirement in 1972. It was here that he established the Eastman Orthodontic Course, the only orthodontic course available at the time. Clifford had many academic achievements throughout his career. He was awarded the FDSRCS Eng in 1949 and the Diploma in Orthodontics in 1954, both without examination. In 1956 he was appointed as Professor of Orthodontics (University of London) the first such chair to be held at the at the Eastman. His influence was global, and he lectured extensively and ran postgraduate courses around the world.