(1728 - 68) of Appuldercombe, Isle of Wight; m. 1750 Ldy. Elizabeth Boyle (d. 1800), dau. of 5th E. of Cork and Orrery [I].
1752 Genoa, Turin (27 Mar. - ) [Cologne 24 Apr.]
1765 - 7 [dep. London 23 Apr. 1765] Susa, Turin (May), Milan (22 May), Piacenza, Parma, Bologna, Florence (26 - 31 May), Siena, Rome (3 - 7 Jun.), Naples (Jun. 1765 - 5 Jun. 1766), Sicily (Jun. - Jul.), Naples (24 Jul. 1766 - 8 Mar. 1767), Rome (12 Mar. - 3 May), Loreto, Perugia, Florence (16 May), Leghorn, Pisa, Lucca, Pistoia, Bologna, Ferrara, Venice (26 May - 10 Jul.), Padua, Vicenza, Verona [London 9 Oct. 1767]
Worsley was first in Italy with his wife in 1752. They made an eighteen-month tour of the Continent, setting out from London in July 1751 and spending most of their time in France. Early in 1752 they sailed from Savona to Genoa and went on to Turin, arriving on 27 March; by 24 April they were in Cologne.1
They returned to Italy in 1765 with their two children, Henrietta (1758 - 91, who m. 1784 John Bridgman Simpson, later B. Bradford) and Richard (aged fourteen, see Sir Richard Worsley), whose 'short account' provides the itinerary.2 At Susa they met their old friend Edward Gibbon and from one of his letters it appears that Worsley had in mind the education of his children at Naples. It was not a good idea, thought Gibbon: 'Naples has no advantage but those of Climate and situation; and in point of expense and education for his children is the very last place in Italy I should have advised'.3 The Worsleys arrived in Florence on 26 May 1765 and were dining with Horace Mann on the 28th.4 They went straight on to Naples, where they spent nearly two years.
On 5 June 1766 Worsley set out on a six-week trip to Sicily; his journal of this tour is illustrated with full-page drawings and plans, and in another notebook he copied out Winckelmann's account of Herculaneum.5 He returned to Naples on 24 July. The family left Naples on 8 March 1767 returning to England through Rome, Florence and Venice, reaching London on 9 October 1767, 'after having been absent exactly two years, five Months and twenty Days'.
1. Worsley MSS 48 (MS travel jnl.). 2. Worsley MSS 44 (MS travel acct.1765 - 7). 3. Gibbon, Letters, 1:196. 4. Farington jnl.MSS (27, 28 May 1765). 5. Worsley MSS 54 and 52.