Arthur Ballard

Arthur Ballard was a "red-whiskered bear of a man who had once been the [English Royal] army's middleweight boxing champion." By 1958 he was a teacher at the Liverpool College of Art. He took a particular interest in one of his young students, John Lennon, finding Lennon's work to be "funny and brilliant," and became one of Lennon's first tutors. He would personally work with Lennon for hours at a time. Lennon would later go on to form The Beatles.

Source: John Lennon: The Life, by Philip Norman (2009), pp. 128-129.