Ada Ballin

Ballin was born in Bloomsbury in 1863. She attended University College London and she was one of the women admitted to their first degree course. She was at UCL from 1878 to 1870 and gained a Hollier scholarship for Hebrew the following year. She won other awards and trained under Professor William Henry Corfield. She does not appear to have completed her degree.[1]

The deformed skeleton illustration from her "Science of Dress"

She was living in Tavistock Square in 1881 with her retired father and her elder brother and still a student at UCL. She published the Science of Dress in 1885 which gave a range of advice to women and their children. She continued her association with UCL and she was attending their UC Society meetings in 1886.[1]

Ballin was the editor of the monthly illustrated journal Baby: the Mothers' Magazine in 1887 which proposed that babies should be dressed in wool with their arms free. She married Alfred Thompson in 1881. She launched and edited Womanhood in 1898 which she targeted at the New Woman. The magazine proposed rational dress as had her 1885 book which had warned of the dangers of corsetry. After a divorce she married Oscar George Daniel Berry in 1901 although she lied about her age presumably to give the impression that he was three and not seven years younger than her.[2]

Ballin died in Portman Square after falling from a window onto railings. The coroner's verdict was accidental death.[2]

• (with her brother) A Hebrew grammar with exercises selected from the Bible (1881) [3]
• Science of Dress (1885)
• (tr.) The Mahdi, Past and Present (1885) by James Darmesteter
• Health and Beauty in Dress from Infancy to Old Age (1892)
• The Kindergarten System Explained (1896)
• Bathing Exercise and Rest (1896)[3]
• Early Education (1897)[3]
• Children's Ailments (1898)[3]
• Nursery Cookery (1900)
• Cradle to School (1902)