Biography

English clergyman, classical scholar, archaeologist and naturalist, educated at St John's College, Cambridge (1839-1843). Babington took holy orders in 1846 and became vicar of Horningsea in Cambridgeshire (1848-1861) and subsequently vicar of Cockfield in Suffolk (1866-1889). His early fascination with archaeology and classics led to Babington's emerging fame as a Greek scholar; he was appointed Disney Professor of Archaeology at Cambridge University (1865-1880). As a naturalist he is perhaps best known as an ornithologist, publishing a Catalogue of the Birds of Suffolk (1884), but was also known as a conchologist. Botanical publications included his contribution to The Flora of Suffolk by W.M. Hind (1889) and an account of the lichens for J.D. Hooker's Tasmanian flora. Perhaps conscious of possible confusion with his elder cousin C.C. Babington, his plant specimens are usually labelled as 'Churchill Babington'. Plant specimens at BM were mostly collected from the latter period of his career in Suffolk and include his lichen herbarium.