Babbage also served in theological education for which he was awarded the Order of Australia as a part of the 1995 Queen's Birthday honours list.

He moved to the United States to become one of the founders of Gordon–Conwell Theological Seminary before returning once more to Australia to become master of New College at the University of New South Wales.

Stuart Babbage was born in Auckland, New Zealand, the eldest of six, to Gordon Swaine and Florence (née' Rutherfurd) on 4 January 1916.

His family tree has been traced back to Charles Babbage (1791–1871), an English Polymath credited with inventing the first computer.

After a troubled youth, Babbage went on to earn a master's degree by the age of 20 before traveling to London, England to pursue his PhD in theology.

The family, minus Veronica, traveled to Atlanta, Georgia, in 1963 leaving Melbourne, Australia to participate in the American Civil Rights Movement, befriending Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. Babbage became a professor at Columbia Theological Seminary in Georgia at the invitation of J. McDowell Richards, then president of the college from 1932 to 1971.