Babington was called to the Irish Bar in 1900. He briefly lectured in Equity at
King's Inns, and it was during this time, in 1910, that he re-arranged and re-wrote R.E. Osborne's
Jurisdiction and Practice of County Courts in Ireland in Equity and Probate Matters. He
took silk in 1917. He moved to the newly established
Northern Ireland in 1921 and practised as a barrister until his election to the
House of Commons of Northern Ireland as the
Ulster Unionist Party member for
South Belfast in
1925 and subsequent appointment as
Attorney General for Northern Ireland the same year in the
cabinet of
Lord Craigavon. His appointment to the
Privy Council of Northern Ireland in 1926 entitled him to the style "The Right Honourable". From 1929 Babington was the MP for
Belfast, Cromac, the South Belfast constituency having been abolished. He was made an
honorary bencher of the
Middle Temple in 1930. Babington resigned from politics in 1937 upon his appointment as a
Lord Justice of Appeal and was knighted in the
1937 Coronation Honours. In 1947, he chaired the Babington Agricultural Enquiry Committee, named in his honour, which was established in 1943 to examine agriculture in Northern Ireland. The committee's first recommendation under Babington's leadership was that Northern Ireland should direct all its energies to the production of livestock and livestock products and to their efficient processing and marketing. Babington retired from the judiciary in 1949, taking up the chairmanship of the Northern Ireland Transport Tribunal, which existed until 1967, established under the Ulster Transport Act - promoting a car-centred transport policy - and which was largely responsible for the closure of the
Belfast and County Down Railway. Babington endorsed the closure on financial grounds and was at cross purposes with his co-chair, Dr James Beddy, who advised against the closure, citing the disruption of life in the border region between the north and the south as his primary reason in addition to financial grounds. Babington also chaired a government inquiry into the licensing of clubs, the proceeds of which resulted in new regulatory legislation at Stormont.
Renaming Northern Ireland as 'Ulster' Babington, whilst Attorney-General, was a proponent of
renaming Northern Ireland as "Ulster". Babington was critical of the newly proposed Irish constitution, in which the name of the Irish state was changed to 'Ireland', laying claim to jurisdiction over Northern Ireland. He said: Babington continued by saying that it was of "great importance" that the "cumbersome name" of Northern Ireland that came into the Act of 1920 alongside Southern Ireland should be changed. When Alton arrived to meet with Hyde, it emerged, after conversing with Hyde's secretary McDunphy, that he and Babington were at cross purposes. "It soon became clear that the united Ireland contemplated by Mr [sic] Justice Babington of the Northern Ireland Judiciary was one within the framework of the British Commonwealth of Nations, involving recognition of the King of England as the Supreme Head, or as Dr Alton put it, the symbol of unity of the whole system," wrote McDunphy. ==Personal life==