Robert John Babington,

DSC DSC may refer to: Academia * Doctor of Science (D.Sc.) * District Selection Committee, an entrance exam in India * Doctor of Surgical Chiropody, superseded in the 1960s by Doctor of Podiatric Medicine Educational institutions * Dalton State Col ...

, QC (9 April 1920 – 17 September 2010) was an

Ulster Unionist Party The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is a unionist political party in Northern Ireland. The party was founded in 1905, emerging from the Irish Unionist Alliance in Ulster. Under Edward Carson, it led unionist opposition to the Irish Home Rule movem ...

politician, who served as the member of the

House of Commons of Northern Ireland The House of Commons of Northern Ireland was the lower house of the Parliament of Northern Ireland created under the ''Government of Ireland Act 1920''. The upper house in the bicameral parliament was called the Senate. It was abolished wit ...

for North Down from 1969 to 1972, and a county court judge. He was born in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

Early life

Born into the

Anglo-Irish Anglo-Irish people () denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the establis ...

Babington family Babington is the name of an Anglo-IrishBurke's Landed Gentry of Ireland, 1958, 4th Edition by L. G. Pine, Burke's Peerage: 'Babington of Creevagh', pg 42' and English gentry family. The Anglo-Irish branch of the family is still extant today. Ba ...

, the son of David and Alice Babington, Robert Babington was educated at

Saint Columba's College, Dublin St Columba's College is a co-educational independent day and boarding school founded in 1843 located in Whitechurch, County Dublin, Ireland. Among the founders of the college were Viscount Adare (who later became The 3rd Earl of Dunraven and M ...

and

Trinity College Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

.'' Who's Who 1991'', p. 72 He served the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, earning the

Distinguished Service Cross The Distinguished Service Cross (D.S.C.) is a military decoration for courage. Different versions exist for different countries. *Distinguished Service Cross (Australia) *Distinguished Service Cross (United Kingdom) *Distinguished Service Cross (U ...

, and was aboard the

aircraft carrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a ...

for the

Battle of Crete The Battle of Crete (german: Luftlandeschlacht um Kreta, el, Μάχη της Κρήτης), codenamed Operation Mercury (german: Unternehmen Merkur), was a major Axis airborne and amphibious operation during World War II to capture the island ...

as a member of the

Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve The Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) is one of the two volunteer reserve forces of the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom. Together with the Royal Marines Reserve, they form the Maritime Reserve. The present RNR was formed by merging the original Ro ...

attached to the

Fleet Air Arm The Fleet Air Arm (FAA) is one of the five fighting arms of the Royal Navy and is responsible for the delivery of naval air power both from land and at sea. The Fleet Air Arm operates the F-35 Lightning II for maritime strike, the AW159 Wil ...

. He went in to spend most of his war service in and around the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...

and survived the sinking of ."Judge served his profession with distinction"
newsletter.co.uk; accessed 27 May 2014. He subsequently embarked on a career in law and politics in

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

. He married Elizabeth Alton, the daughter of

Ernest Alton Ernest Henry Alton (21 September 1873 – 18 February 1952) was an Irish university professor and an Independent Teachta Dála (TD) and Senator. Born near Mullingar, County Westmeath, Alton attended The High School in Dublin. He graduated from ...

, in 1952; the couple had had two sons (Philip Babington and David Babington) and a daughter (Bryanna Jane Babington). He was a great-grandson of The Rev. Hume Babington and a first cousin once removed to Sir Anthony Babington.Burke's Landed Gentry of Ireland, 1958, 4th Edition by

L. G. Pine Leslie Gilbert Pine (22 December 1907 – 15 May 1987) was a British writer, lecturer, and researcher in the areas of genealogy, nobility, history, heraldry and animal welfare. Early life and education Pine was born at Bristol, the son of Henry Mo ...

Burke's Peerage Burke's Peerage Limited is a British genealogical publisher founded in 1826, when the Irish genealogist John Burke began releasing books devoted to the ancestry and heraldry of the peerage, baronetage, knightage and landed gentry of Great Br ...

: 'Babington of Creevagh', pg 42'

Politics

Although he argued in 1961 in favour of

discrimination Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong. People may be discriminated on the basis of race, gender, age, relig ...

in favour of unionists in employment,John D. Brewer with Gareth I. Higgins
"Anti-Catholicism in Northern Ireland, 1600-1998"
CAIN.ulst.ac.uk; accessed 27 May 2014. Babington became known as a moderate within the UUP. He supported the principle of full and equal voting rights during his 1969 campaign and advocated the expulsion of any party member who refused to follow the edicts of the British government fully.W.D. Flackes & S. Elliott, ''Northern Ireland: A Political Directory 1968-1999'', 194, p. 91, Blackstaff Press (1999); He was a staunch critic of any Unionist involvement in political violence and a vocal opponent of

Ulster nationalism Ulster nationalism is a minor school of thought in the politics of Northern Ireland that seeks the independence of Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom without joining the Republic of Ireland, thereby becoming an independent sovereign s ...

. The collapse of the Parliament was the effective end of Babington's career in politics and he left the

Orange Order The Loyal Orange Institution, commonly known as the Orange Order, is an international Protestant fraternal order based in Northern Ireland and primarily associated with Ulster Protestants, particularly those of Ulster Scots heritage. It also ...

in 1973.

Law

Babington was called to the bar in 1947 and was made a QC in 1965. During the early part of

the Troubles The Troubles ( ga, Na Trioblóidí) were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an "i ...

Babington served as prosecuting counsel at a number of high=profile trials related to the conflict. He was appointed as a

county court A county court is a court based in or with a jurisdiction covering one or more counties, which are administrative divisions (subnational entities) within a country, not to be confused with the medieval system of ''county courts'' held by the high ...

judge in 1974, retiring in 1992.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Babington, Robert 1920 births 2010 deaths Judges in Northern Ireland Members of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland 1969–1973 People educated at St Columba's College, Dublin Place of birth missing Place of death missing 20th-century King's Counsel Recipients of the Distinguished Service Cross (United Kingdom) Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve personnel of World War II Royal Navy officers of World War II Ulster Unionist Party members of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland

Robert The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honou ...

Members of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland for County Down constituencies