John Stevenson of Balladoole (c. 1655-1737), Speaker of the House of Keys and one of the commissioners who negotiated the Act of Settlement of 1704 with the Earl of Derby. The Act is sometimes called the Manx Magna Carta, and Bishop Wilson styled him the Father of his Country.

What the Act did is put plainly in the Manx sources: it did away with the proceedings that had gone before and restored the violated tenures. That is the whole of his public reputation in this corpus, and later writers reach for the Act rather than for the man.

Balladoole itself kept the papers. The account of James, Duke of Atholl, first taking possession of his kingdom of Man in 1736 comes from an old manuscript formerly in the possession of Stevenson of Balladoole, and was probably written by one of that family. It gives a detailed narrative of the Duke and his suite embarking at Liverpool on board the ship Prince William, and of the proceedings at the Tynwald at St John's on 24 June 1736. Stevenson was alive that summer and died the following year.