1866 full physician to Guy's. He lectured there on materia medica from 1856 to 1873, and on medicine from 1873 to 1877. Having been a member of the Royal College of Physicians from 1851, and fellow from 1856, he was successively examiner, councillor, and censor, and in 1876 Lumleian lecturer, in 1883 Harveian orator, and in 1887 vice-president of the college. He was president of the Medical Society of London in 1873. In November 1880, being then senior physician to Guy's, he resigned his post, together with John Cooper Forster [q. v.], the senior surgeon. Habershon died on 22 Aug. 1889 from gastric ulcer, leaving one son and three daughters; his wife had died in April of the same year. As a physician Habershon had a high reputation, especially in abdominal diseases, which he did much to elucidate. He was the first in England to propose the operation of gastrostomy for stricture of the œsophagus, which Cooper Forster performed on a patient of Habershon's in 1858. He was amiable, high-minded, and deeply religious, and was one of the founders of the Christian Medical Association.
Habershon wrote, besides twenty-eight papers in 'Guy's Hospital Reports,' from 1855 to 1872, and others in various medical transactions and journals:
- 'Pathological and Practical Observations on Diseases of the Abdomen,' 1857; fourth ed. 1888; American editions 1859, 1879.
- 'On the Injurious Effects of Mercury in … Disease,' 1859.
- 'On Diseases of the Stomach,' 1866; third ed. 1879; American ed. 1879.
- 'On Some Diseases of the Liver' (Lettsomian Lectures), 1872.
- 'On the Pathology of the Pneumogastric Nerve' (Lumleian Lectures), 1877, 2nd edit. 1885; Italian translation, 1879.
[Lancet, 31 Aug., 26 Oct. 1889; Wilks and Bettany's Biog. Hist. of Guy's Hospital.]
HABINGTON, ABINGTON, or ABINGDON, EDWARD (1553?–1586), one of the conspirators in the plot formed by Anthony Babington [see Babington, Anthony], was eldest son of John Habington (1515-1581) of Hindlip, Worcestershire, by his wife Catherine, daughter of John Wykes. Thomas Habington [q. v.] was a younger brother. His father held the office of under-treasurer or 'cofferer' to Queen Elizabeth (Camden, Annales, ii. 476; Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. App. p. 637 a and b). Born about 1553, Edward was educated at Exeter College, Oxford, where he took his bachelor's degree in 1574 (Oxf. Univ. Reg., Oxf. Hist. Soc., ii. ii. 33, iii. 37). On leaving the university he spent much time at court. He there made the acquaintance of Anthony Babington, a catholic courtier, who early in 1586 was maturing, at the instigation of a Jesuit [see Ballard, John], a plan for a general rising of the catholics which should accomplish the murder of the queen and the liberation of Mary Stuart, at that time imprisoned at Chartley. Habington not only joined Babington's conspiracy with other young frequenters of the court, but was named one of the six conspirators charged with the contemplated murder of Elizabeth. In July 1586 the plot was discovered by Walsingham's spies [see Gifford, Gilbert]. Habington, found at the end of August in hiding near the residence of his family in Worcestershire, was thrown into the Tower. Brought with six others to trial on 15 Sept., he resolutely denied his guilt, and claimed to be confronted with two witnesses to his complicity, according to Edward VI's statute regulating trials for treason. But on the confession of other prisoners, and on the fragments of a confession written and subsequently torn up by himself while in prison, he was found guilty and condemned to death. On 20 Sept. 1586 he was hanged and quartered in St. Giles's Fields. In a speech from the scaffold he vehemently maintained his innocence (Camden, Annales, ii. 484).
[Nash's Worcestershire, i. 588 (pedigree); State Trials, i. 116-22; State Paper Cal. 1581-90, p. 354; Froude's Hist. of England, xii. 227-69; Lingard's Hist. vi. 209-10.]
HABINGTON or ABINGTON, THOMAS (1560–1647), antiquary, was a younger son of John Habington, cofferer to Queen Elizabeth, a man of good family and considerable wealth. Thomas was born at one of his father's manors, Thorpe, near Chertsey, in Surrey, on 23 Aug. 1560. At the age of sixteen he entered Lincoln College, Oxford, where he remained three years. He then went abroad and studied at Paris and Rheims, where he embraced the Roman catholic religion. On his return to England, he and his brother Edward [q. v.] joined those who plotted in behalf of Mary Queen of Scots. Edward was concerned in Babington's conspiracy and was executed on 30 Sept. 1586. At the same time Thomas was committed to the Tower, where he remained in captivity for six years. He was then permitted to retire to Hindlip, near Worcester, where his father had bought an estate and built a house which he bequeathed to his son. In his enforced retirement Habington gave himself to antiquarian research, and made a survey of the county of Worcester. He also converted his house into a hiding-place for persecuted priests, and showed great ingenuity
