[1] Sir Christopher John Elinger Ball (born 22 April 1935)[2] is a British academic, who served as Warden of Keble College, Oxford, from 1980 to 1988, and as the first Chancellor of the University of Derby, from 1995 to 2003.
[3] Ball was educated at St George's School, Harpenden, and served in the Parachute Regiment as a Second Lieutenant (1955 to 1956).
He then read English at Merton College, Oxford, where he was a scholar, obtaining a first-class degree in 1959.
He returned to the University of Oxford in 1964 as a Fellow and Tutor in English at Lincoln College, where he also served as bursar from 1972 to 1979.
In 1980, he was appointed Warden of Keble College, Oxford, a post that he held until 1988, the same year that he was knighted.