William Macmahon Ball, 1901–1986
William Macmahon Ball, or ‘Mac’ as I shall refer to him henceforth, was born in Casterton, in south-western Victoria in 1901, the son of an Anglican minister and the youngest of a family of five. He recalled that he hated going to church, and resented the restrictions placed on Sunday activities, which included a ban on reading anything other than religious literature.
His father retired when Mac was nine, and they moved to Melbourne. He had an undistinguished school career, but was able to gain a scholarship to Caulfield Grammar School for his last two years of secondary education. His lack of scholastic distinction meant that he failed to matriculate. However, the outbreak of war in 1914 led to the enlistment of a large number of schoolteachers. (Schoolteachers have played a large part in providing officers for the Australian army. One of the senior teachers at my own secondary school, A.H. Ramsay, became a brigadier in the Second World War and later Director of Education in Victoria.) The shortage of teachers meant that youngsters like Mac were in demand. He recalled that he taught school during the day and attended a coaching college at night, which enabled him to teach the subjects he had failed for his matriculation examination. He finally matriculated and was admitted to the University of Melbourne.
Mac distilled his own experience by reminding people that school performance was no guarantee of university success. In his own case, he fulfilled this proposition by doing well at university and gained honours in philosophy, psychology and sociology. He was also a foundation member of the Labor Club, along with other well-known characters such as the historian Brian Fitzpatrick. He was soon appointed to a lectureship in psychology, logic and ethics, and quickly established a reputation as a brilliant teacher. In 1929, he was awarded a Rockefeller Travelling Fellowship in political science, and spent two years at the London School of Economics and Political Science under the tutelage of Harold Laski, probably the best known teacher of political science in Britain during his lifetime. (Laski was the mentor for political activists from all over the British Empire, and many of his students became political leaders in their own countries.)
Laski had an abiding influence on Mac. One of his main concerns was to expose the abuse of power by governments. In his largest and most influential work, A Grammar of