Walter Balls, who assumed the additional surname of Headley in 1886, came from Shelford in Cambridgeshire and was an undergraduate of Peterhouse. Having taken the degree of B.A. in 1862, he studied medicine at Addenbrooke’s and St. Bartholomew’s Hospitals, graduating as M.B. in 1864. He held resident appointments both at St. Bartholomew’s and at the Hospital for Sick Children and then emigrated to Australia. He was, first, physician to the Warwick Hospital, Queensland, but spent most of his career at Melbourne, where he was elected to the staffs of the Alfred Hospital and the Women’s Hospital and lectured on obstetrics and the diseases of women at the University. He received the Melbourne M.D. degree ad eundem in 1876. He retired in 1908 and, after two years at Bideford in Devon, finally settled at Proctor, British Columbia, where he died.

G H Brown

[Al.Cantab., i, 137]