Mr. Henry Adam Ball is one of the oldest residents in Blenheim. He was born in January, 1836, at Great Bar, in Staffordshire, England, where he was educated, and was afterwards brought up to the malting business in his father's malthouses. At twenty years of age, Mr. Ball came to New Zealand in the ship “Ann Wilson,” and soon after landing was appointed by Dr. Featherston overseer of a gang of men who were engaged in the construction of the Ngahuranga road near Wellington. In the year 1857, however, when the Collingwood diggings broke out, he joined the rush, but, meeting with little success, he went to New South Wales, where he found work for about six months in the Paramatta orange orchards. In 1858, Mr. Ball returned to New Zealand and subsequently removed to Blenheim, or, as it was then called, Beavertown. Shortly after, he joined the late Mr. Henry Dodson in partnership, and the firm carried on a successful brewing, malting, and hop-growing trade for about fifteen years, under the style of Messrs Dodson and Ball. Mr. Ball then sold out his interests to his partner, and after living a somewhat retired life for ten years, he built a large brewery on Grove road, and at the same time established extensive malthouses at the corner of Herbert and Dodson Streets. Two years later, he sold the brewery, which is now conducted by a company under the name of the Marlboroug Brewery, and has since devoted his energies to the malting business. Mr. Ball is noted for his kindly and benevolent disposition. He married, in the year 1861, and has five sons and five daughters.