George Barrett

“who flashed like a brilliant meteor over our horizon…the movement lost an inspiring personality when he died.” George Cores

“He knew that nothing short of a complete revolutionary change in the basis of society would be of any social value. He would never compromise with his ideas, and his integrity was always apparent and above suspicion”. Mat Kavanagh

“To know him was to be awed by a revelation of the liberty he lived for-yet rather not that he lived for, but that he lived, and of which he had become a part..His writings, his life and sayings, all the force he was, and created amonst us and still is, all that made this man we loved, and love, is forever part of the great eternal force in humanity’s forward march”. Edith Ballard Nee Oxley

George Powell Ballard was born on December 6th 1888 at Ledbury in Herefordshire into a fairly well-to-do family. His family was well known locally - his father being, as quoted in a local paper: “a master genius in many bypaths of mechanical handicraft.” His uncle, his paternal grandfather and his brother were all artists.