Bertram Ballard
Bertram Charles Ballard AM (22 January 1903 – 15 July 1981) was an Australian public servant and diplomat.[1] Ballard was born on 22 January 1903 in Toorak, Melbourne the eldest of three children in his family.[2] Ballard joined the Commonwealth Public Service as Australian government solicitor in New Hebrides, Vanuatu in 1934.He was tasked with encouraging war-time cooperation between New Caledonia and Australia and was also responsible for reporting to the Australian Government on economic and political affairs.[2] In his first decade at the external affairs department, he was posted to Japan, the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), France, the Soviet Union and Switzerland.