▶Date of birth:   1768 (baptised 18 April 1768)       Place of birth: Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire

▶Father:  The Revd. Joseph Worgan     Mother: Jemima Little Hartland

▶Spouse(s):  Philippa Berney     Date(s) of marriage:  6 June 1835     Place(s) of marriage:  Croydon, Surrey

▶Occupation: Clergyman (Anglican); Author

▶Lifestory: John Hartland Worgan was a churchman who published several religious texts and lived in retirement in Pittville in the mid 1870s. He was born in Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, in 1768, the only son of the Revd. Joseph Worgan, Vicar of Pebworth, Gloucestershire, and his wife Jemima Little (née Hartland). Worgan matriculated at Pembroke College, Oxford in 1817,  Scholar 1817-25, BA 1820, MA 1823. He was ordained Deacon and Priest (both Salisbury) in 1826, the year after his father’s death.

In 1826 he was licensed Curate of West Lavington in Wiltshire. He married Philippa, eldest daughter of Edward Berney Esq., of Cleves, Prussia, and of Croydon, in 1835; they had two sons and six daughters. By 1843, when he published his Speculum Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ; or, Some account of the principles and results of the Reformation of the Church of England, he was serving as Curate at Calthorpe in Leicestershire. He continued to publish religious texts: A plea for the Church of England: or, Plain words for plain men, on the present position of the Church (1850) and The Pentateuch, or, Five books of Moses: with a short sketch of the history of Israel from the death of Moses to the final destruction of Jerusalem (1855). In 1851 he lived in his wife’s hometown of Croydon, but without clerical duties and soon afterwards at Coltham House, Charlton Kings. Between 1857 and 1863 he served as Rector of Willersey, Gloucestershire, and in 1863 he published The Divine Week; or, outlines of a harmony of the geologic periods with the Mosaic “days” of creation (1863).

By 1866 Worgan is described as of Prestbury, and in the 1870s (1870-8) he lived in retirement with his wife Philippa, two daughters, and two servants at 3 Pittville Crescent in Cheltenham, before moving to Speenhamland, Newbury, where he died in 1882, at the age of eighty-one. His estate at death was sworn at just over £1,700.

▶Moved to Pittville from:  Prestbury      Moved from Pittville to: Speenhamland, Newbury

▶Date of death:  21 November 1882     Place of death: Newbury, Berkshire     

▶Date of burial:         Place of burial:

▶Notes:  Boase      ID: 7538

Contributor(s):  John Simpson/Alan Munden