Dates

• Existence: 1821 - 1889

Biography

Churchill Babington (1821-89), scholar, was born at Roecliffe, Leicestershire, on 11 March 1821, the only son of Matthew Drake Babington (1788-1851), rector of Thringstone, and his wife, Hannah (d. 1873). He entered St John's College, Cambridge, in 1839. While he was still an undergraduate his youthful love of nature found expression in a contribution to T. R. Potter's History and Antiquities of Charnwood Forest (1842). He graduated BA in 1843, being the seventh in the classical tripos, and a senior optime in mathematics, and was president of the Cambridge Union in 1845. In 1846 he graduated MA, was elected a fellow of St John's College, and was ordained, having gained the Hulsean prize for an essay entitled 'Christianity in relation to the abolition of slavery'. From 1848 until 1861 he was perpetual curate of Horningsea, Cambridgeshire. In 1865 he was elected Disney professor of archaeology at Cambridge, and published his inaugural lecture. He was re-elected to the chair in 1870 and 1875. Babington proceeded DD in 1879. In the following year he resigned the Disney chair of archaeology and was elected an honorary fellow of St John's College, Cambridge. He died at Cockfield rectory on 12 January 1889, and was buried in the parish churchyard.

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