According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, he was probably born on 3 May 1704 in Westminster; educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge, admitted to Lincoln's Inn on 27 January 1721, and called to the bar on 6 November 1728.
Hargrave adds that Mr. Bellewe was a man of learning and devoted to classical literature, and that his manuscript law collections were in the possession of Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden, who was his executor and literary legatee.
Hawkins gives the following anecdote: 'There was a man of the name of Ballow who used to pass his evenings at Tom's Coffee House in Devereux Court, then the resort, of some of the most eminent men for learning.
One evening at the coffee house a dispute between these two persons rose so high, that for some expression uttered by Ballow, Akenside thought himself obliged to demand an apology, which not being able to obtain, he sent his adversary a challenge in writing.
Ballow, a little deformed man, well known as a saunterer in the park, about Westminster, and in the streets between Charing Cross and the houses of parliament, though remarkable for a sword of an unusual length, which he constantly wore when he went abroad, had no inclination for fighting, and declined an answer.