Orders, Decorations & Medals - Australian Groups

Lot 3530    Session 12 (11:30am Thursday)    Orders, Decorations & Medals - Australian Groups

Estimate $500
Bid at live.noble.com.au
SOLD $2,200

GROUP OF FIVE: Order of Australia, Member (AM); 1939-45 Star; Defence Medal 1939-45; War Medal 1939-45; New Zealand War Service Medal 1939-45. Stuart Barton Babbage on reverse of first medal, other medals unnamed as issued. The named medal pantographed. The first medal in case of issue with miniature, lapel pins and riband bar, the rest swing mounted, extremely fine.

Together with a matching set of swing mounted WWII miniatures; Order of Australia book and A Guide to Wearing of Insignia book. Medal entitlement for WWII not confirmed.

AM: in 1995 'In recognition of service to the Anglican Church of Australia to education and to the community.'

Rev Dr Canon Stuart Barton Babbage AM was born at Auckland in New Zealand on 4 January 1916 and was educated at Auckland Grammar state school. He had a call to religious life at the young age of 16. At the same age he enroled at Auckland University College to study Arts and Journalism and pursued majors in History and Economics. He joined the Evangelical Union on campus eventually becoming President. He was awarded a scholarship to St John's College where he completed his degree and then continued on to complete a Masters of Arts in History.

Stuart left New Zealand in 1937 for England via Sydney to study theology. During his five day stopover he met several senior Anglican clerics including the Archbishop of Sydney, Howard Mowll. In England he enroled at the Bible Churchmen's Missionary and Theological College and passed the ordination exams. He was still too young to be ordanised to the ministry so he enrolled in a PhD at King's College. Stuart was ordained into the ministry on 17 December 1939 and placed at a small village on the outskirts of London. After three years he applied to join the air force and was made an air force chaplain and in 1942 was posted to Fetwell, a major base for heavy bombers in Norfolk. While here he met his future wife, Flight Officer Elizabeth King. They were married in May 1943 just before Stuart was posted overseas for two years to Iraq and then Persia.

Post war Stuart and his wife moved to Sydney where he was appointed Diocesan Missioner for the Anglican Church, then at the age of thirty he was appointed 3rd Dean of Sydney. At this time he was a regular writer on religion and life in the Sydney Morning Herald and one of his highlights was welcoming Field Marshall Viscount Montgomery of Alamein when he visited Sydney. He also was a regular religious instructor at Fort Street Boy's High School where he had a positive influence on many students as later attested to by Justice Michael Kirby. In 1953 he was appointed Principal of Ridley College in Melbourne where he remained until 1963. He was also on the Billy Graham Crusade Committee in 1959 and held the post of Dean of Melbourne as well as his position at Ridley College.

He held various overseas teaching roles in England and America and later was appointed as Second Master of New College at the University of New South Wales, and in 1973 Master. When the Archbishop of Sydney died Stuart was asked to fill the short term role of Acting Dean of Sydney and he also assumed the role of Registrar of the Australian College of Theology which he fulfilled until 1972. He produced several studies including seven books, one of which was his life story, Memoirs of a Loose Canon, launched by Gough Whitlam in 2004.

Rev Stuart Babbage was commemorated and interred at a service at St Jude's Anglican Church, Randwick on 23 November 2012, a church where he was a regular preacher.

With research.