Charles Cardale Babington

Charles Cardale Babington (1808-1895) was born on 23 November 1808 at Ludlow, Shropshire. He was educated at Charterhouse, before matriculating at St John's College, Cambridge, in 1826 (B.A., 1830; M.A., 1833), where he became a fellow. He was professor of botany at the university, 1861-1895. Babington carried out intensive research in natural history. He helped to found the Entomological Society in 1833, and the Cambridge Antiquarian Society in 1840. He died at Brookside, Cambridge, on 22 July 1895.

The only child of Joseph Babington and Catherine Whitter, Charles married Anna Maria Walker in 1866. His father, a physician, was a keen amateur botanist and doubtless influenced his son’s inclination to natural history.

After a succession of private schools and a brief interlude at Charterhouse, Babington entered St. John’s College, Cambridge, in 1826, graduating B.A. in 1830 and receiving the M.A. in 1833. In his first year at Cambridge he established an enduring friendship with J.S. Henslow, professor of botany, whose enthusiasm confirmed Babington’s lifelong devotion to botany. Completely involved in the natural history activities of Cambridge for more than forty years, Babington was a leading member of the Ray Club, which developed into the Ray Society (founded 1844); and a number of its publications, such as Memorials of John Ray and Correspondence of John Ray, owed much to his help. A man of wide intellectual interests, he was a founding member of the Entomological Society in Cambridge and the Cambridge Antiquarian Society.

Babington’s first work, Flora Bathoniensis (1834), with critical notes and references to Continental floras, adumbrated the direction of his future taxonomic work. Two visits to the Channel Islands, in 1837 and 1838, resulted in his Primitiae florae Sarnicae (1839). The Napoleonic Wars had isolated the British Isles from botanical research in the rest of Europe, where the natural system of plant classification was generally accepted, and therefore Linnaeus’ artifical arrangement was perpetuated in such standard English works as J.E. Smith’s English Botany and the earlier editions of W.J. Hooker’s British Flora. Consequently, it was difficult for English botanists to identify the new plants published in Continental floras, a defect remedied by Babington in successive editions of his Manual of British Botany. Considered to be his magnum opus, it made its first appearance in 1843 and, with the exception of the fifth edition of Hooker’s British Flora, was the first complete guide to British plants arranged according to a natural system. Accurate and clear in its descriptions, meticulous in its assignment of genera and species, the Manual soon established itself as an indispensable field companion.

Babington differed from many of his contemporaries in insisting upon a more critical delimitation of species; this was well demonstrated in his British Rubi (1869), which described in impressive detail some forty-five species.

On the death of his friend Henslow in 1861, Babington was elected to the chair of botany at Cambridge, which he held until his death. He was an indifferent and infrequent lecturer; his interests were mainly in research, and during his professorship many additions were made to the Cambridge Herbarium, the most notable being John Lindley’s collection. His own collection of nearly 55,000 sheets was bequeathed to Cambridge, together with his library. At the time of his death Babington was the senior fellow of the Linnean Society, having been elected in 1830; in 1851 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society.