Charles Badham - Career

Career

Having taken holy orders, Badham was appointed headmaster of Louth grammar school, Lincolnshire (1851–1854), and subsequently headmaster of Edgbaston proprietary school, near Birmingham. In the interval he had taken the degree of D.D. at Cambridge (1852). In 1860 he received the honorary degree of doctor of letters at the University of Leiden. In 1863 was made one of the examiners in classics at London university. In 1866 he was also appointed classical examiner for the Indian civil service.

In 1867 Badham left England to take up the professorship of classics and logic in Sydney University, Australia, arriving in April, which he held until his death. The university had been established some 15 years but had fewer than 40 students, and the professor's official duties were not heavy. But Badham was not content to laze in a backwater and he even went so far as to write to the leading newspapers in New South Wales offering to correct the exercises of students who might be studying Latin, Greek, French or German, in the country. Some years later he travelled over the country holding meetings and endeavouring to get the people to become interested in the university and to found bursaries for poor students. When the government of New South Wales decided to found a great public library at Sydney, Badham was nominated as a trustee and was elected as the first chairman of trustees. He took the greatest interest in the library, and his wide knowledge was invaluable in its early years. He became the representative man of the university, and his speeches at the annual commencements were eagerly awaited. He always insisted that there must be the same standard of examination for degrees at Sydney as in the leading British universities, and he spared no pains in helping his students to reach that standard.