Ballantyne was born in Edinburgh on 24 April 1825, the ninth of ten children and the youngest son, to Alexander Thomson Ballantyne (1776–1847) and his wife Anne (1786–1855). Alexander was a newspaper editor and printer in the

In 1847 Ballantyne returned to Scotland to discover that his father had died. He published his first book the following year, Hudson's Bay: or, Life in the Wilds of North America, and for some

A Greater London Council plaque commemorates Ballantyne at "Duneaves" on Mount Park Road in Harrow.
One of the young men

Ballantyne spent his later years in Harrow, London, before moving to Italy for the sake of his health, possibly suffering from undiagnosed Ménière's disease. He died in Rome on 8 February 1894,

• The Hudson's Bay Company (1848)
• The Young Fur Traders (1856)
• Mister Fox. A Children's Nursery Rhyme (1856)
• Ungava (1857 )