Youngest son of the late Thomas Stanhope Badcock, formerly of Little Missenden Abbey, co. Bucks, Esq. by Anne, daughter of the lute William Buckle, of Mythe House, near Tewkesbury, Esq. His father, and his late uncle, Lieutenant-Colonel Lovell Badcock, were both High Sheriffs of Buckinghamshire: the former served in the 6th regiment of foot, as lieutenant, in America and the West Indies, during the war between Great Britain and her colonies; after which he held a commission in the Royal Bucks militia, and was with that corps in Ireland, during the alarming rebellion, in 1798. Their grandmother was a daughter of Sir Salathiel Lovell, one of the Barons of the Exchequer, whose other daughters married into the Barrington and Stanhope families: their mother was the daughter and heiress of Colonel Lovell, who died at the Cape of Good Hope.
The subject of this memoir entered the navy, in May 1799, at the age of eleven years; and first went to sea in the Renown 74, bearing the flag of Sir John Borlase Warren, to whom he had been recommended by the late Marquis of Buckingham, a nobleman of the highest character.