Henry Worsley (ambassador)

Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Worsley (1672 – 15 March 1740) was an English Army officer, ambassador, MP and Governor of Barbados.^[1]

He was the second son of Sir Robert Worsley, 3rd Baronet, of Appuldurcombe, Isle of Wight and educated at St. Edmund Hall, Oxford (1690), after which he studied law at Lincoln's Inn.

He joined the British Army as an ensign in Colonel William Beveridge’s Regiment of Foot (later the 14th Regiment of Foot) in 1689, becoming a lieutenant in 1693, and seeing action in Scotland and Flanders, where he was present at the battles of Landen and Namur. He transferred to become a captain in Colonel Francis Fergus O’Farrell’s Foot Regiment (later the 21st Foot) in 1693 and then as a captain-lieutenant in the 1st Foot Guards in 1700, rising in turn to captain and lieutenant-colonel (1702–08).

He was elected Member of Parliament for Newtown, Isle of Wight in 1705, sitting during the Union with Scotland until 1715. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1705.^[2]

In 1708 he retired from the Army and, having fought in Spain, was appointed an envoy to the King Charles III of Spain, but in the event was never sent. From 1713 to 1722 he was an ambassador to Portugal. In 1721 he was appointed Governor of Barbados, arriving in 1723 and holding the position until 1731, when he was removed from office after adverse complaints.

He died unmarried in 1740.

References