People often ask if I’m related to Richard Hansford Worth, a well-known figure around Plymouth & Dartmoor. The short answer is maybe, but I can’t prove it.
Our family trees both point back to Walkhampton Parish. A missing link in the early 1700s keeps me from tying Richard firmly to either group of Worths present in the area at the time, so the connection remains an open question for now.
Richard Nicholls Worth (1837 – 1896)
Richard Nicholls Worth was a geologist and historian of the City of Plymouth, Devon. He was the eldest son of Richard Worth, a builder from Devonport and his wife Eliza. He married Lydia Amelia Davies on 22nd March 1860 at Stoke Damerel Church. He worked at the Western Morning News from 1863 until 1865 when he moved to Newcastle upon Tyne to take on a role as the editor of the Northern Daily Express, this was short lived and in 1867 he moved back to Plymouth and rejoined his previous employer. In 1868 the couple had a son, Richard Hansford Worth. Richard Nicholls Worth contributed greatly to investigating the history and geology of Devon and Cornwall with approximately 140 papers published between 1869 and his death. He was president of the Plymouth Association twice and president of the Devonshire Association from 1891. Richard passed on 3rd July 1896 at Shaugh Prior and was buried in the local churchyard.
Richard Hansford Worth (1868 – 1950)
Richard Hansford Worth is the son of Richard Nicholls Worth, born 5th November 1868, Devonport. He attended Plymouth High School for Boys (now Plymouth College) and following his studies joined the Great Western Railway as an engineer based in Paddington. In 1890 he returned to Plymouth and started a civil engineering business. In 1907 he married Annie Kingwell of South Brent.
He held many memberships including being a founding member of the Marine Biological Society, a member of the Institute of Civil Engineers and the Mineralogical Society, he also received a fellowship from the Geological Society of London. He joined the Plymouth Institution in 1888 where he published his first paper “Early Western Railways”.
He followed in his father’s footsteps as active participant in the Devonshire Association from 1891 and formed the Dartmoor Exploration Committee in 1893 alongside Richard Nicholls Worth and Dr Gray. The committee performed numerous surveys and excavations of Dartmoor’s features publishing many reports and restoring key features such as stone circles or stone rows to protect the ancient monuments from being robbed for stone.
In 1930 Richard Hansford Worth became president of the Devonshire Association and submitted a major paper on The Physical Geography of Dartmoor.
During his lifetime Worth intended to compile his writings into a book, he died on 11th November 1950 before being able to complete this task but left a sum of money and instructions in his will to complete the publication and for any proceeds to go to the Devonshire Association. The first version was published in 1953 and was re-published in 1967. Richard Hansford Worth is buried alongside his father at Shaugh Prior.
The Walkhampton Link
It can be concluded from Richard Nicholls Worth’s obituary that there are family ties to Walkhampton, in particular the following paragraph.
The descendant of an old Moorland family, the Walkhampton branch of the Worths, it may be that family associations, or it may be, as he sometimes half-jestingly suggested, that heredity influenced him; but it is no exaggeration to say that his love for Dartmoor extended to its very soil. In consequence, much of his best antiquarian and geological effort was expended on the elucidation of problems, or the collection of information relative to the Moor.
The complexity is that Walkhampton had two groups of Worths, the descendants of Nicholas Worth from whom I am descended and another group who moved from the Ermington area. It is also clear that both Richards had a strong affinity to Shaugh Prior, a place my Great Aunt used to visit when she was younger to visit family members.
Missing Connections
Tracing Richard Hansford Worth’s ancestry the following tree can be drawn with reasonable confidence from parish records and other public information sources such as Richard Hansford and Richard Nicholls’ Wikipedia Pages.
The problem lies with John (b. 1743), according to his baptism records he was son of John and Elizabeth, but tracking down his father John is quite a difficult task, his parent’s marriage records are present in 1742 and Elizabeth’s baptism appears to have been in 1708. Assuming John was around the same age as his spouse this would indicate a search for John Worth baptisms in Walkhampton 10 years either side of 1710. This yields several results…
- John Worth (b. 1706), son of Michael Worth and Jane Randle, who appears on my family tree.
- John Worth (b. 1713), son of Edward Worth and Joan.
- John Worth (b. 1717), son of Edward Worth.
I also searched for baptisms just prior to 1700 with no results.
According to the Walkhampton Baptism register John and Elizabeth had 3 children, John (b.14th March 1743), William (b. 15th September 1746), Gertrude (b. 5th September 1748). It is conceivable that Elizabeth could have married any of the Johns listed above, having said that it was quite typical at the time for men to marry a slightly younger bride which would provide a reasonable possibility John (b. 1706) could be her spouse. Having said that this isn’t a one size fits all rule and it is quite conceivable that tradition was broken and Elizabeth married a younger man, especially considering she was older (30s) than typical marriage age for this time.
This leaves an inconclusive result on whether I am related to Richard Hansford Worth in anyway according to records. Perhaps on a future visit to Walkhampton I will search for John’s (b. 1706) grave (if memorial is present) and see if it has any mention of a wife by the name Elizabeth.