Major General Charles Worsley
Major-General Charles Worsley (1622–1656)
Born	(1622-06-24)24 June 1622[1]
Died	12 June 1656(1656-06-12) (aged 33) St. James's, London[1]
Resting place	Henry VII's chapel in Westminster Abbey
Nationality	English
Spouse(s)	Mary Booth (1644–1649) Dorothy Kenyon (1652–1656)
Parent(s)	Ralph Worsley and Isabel née Massey

Charles Worsley (24 June 1622 – 12 June 1656) was an English soldier and politician. He was an ardent supporter of Oliver Cromwell and was an officer in the Parliamentary army during the English Civil War and the Commonwealth of England. He sat in the House of Commons in 1654 and governed a district during the Rule of the Major-Generals.^[2]

Worsley was the son of Ralph Worsley, of The Platt, Rusholme and his wife Isabel Massy, daughter of Edward Massy of Manchester.^[3] He was a parliamentary captain in Lancashire in 1644. By 1650 he was lieutenant colonel of a regiment raised in Lancashire for Cromwell. In 1651 he was employed in the reduction of the Isle of Man.

Worsley commanded the detachment used in the expulsion of the Long Parliament^[4] in 1653 and took charge of the "bauble" when Cromwell ordered it to be removed.^[3]

In 1654, Worsley was elected the first Member of Parliament for Manchester in the First Protectorate Parliament.^[5][4] During the Rule of the Major-Generals, Worsley governed a district consisting of Cheshire, Lancashire and Staffordshire.^[2][4] He confiscated the property of Royalists, put Roman Catholics in jail, suppressed horse-racing, and promoted the public good according to his own ideals. He died suddenly in 1656 at the age of 33 and was buried in the Henry VII Chapel in Westminster Abbey.^[3]

A branch of the Worsley family settled at Platt Hall, Lancashire, now in Fallowfield in the City of Manchester. The hall was bought by Ralph Worsley (1625) from the Platt family. Ralph Worsley's father, Charles, was the great-grandson of Sir Geoffrey Worsley of Boothes and a kinsman of the Worsleys of Worsley Hall (from whom derived the Worsleys of Appuldurcombe and of Hovingham).

The family of Charles Worsley remained at Platt Hall until 1906, when it was sold to the Manchester Corporation, the city then encroaching on its estate. Elizabeth Tindal-Carill-Worsley, who sold the estate, was the granddaughter of Francis Sacheverel Darwin, son of Erasmus Darwin. She married Nicolas Tindal of Aylesbury, a great-grandnephew of Sir Nicholas Conyngham Tindal, Lord Chief Justice of England from 1829 – 1843. Their grandson, Group Captain Nicolas Tindal-Carill-Worsley (known as Tindal), was a bomber pilot in the Second World War and a major instigator of the "Great Escape". His son, Charles Tindal, is the current representative of the family.^[6][7]

• Plant, David (18 December 2007). Charles Worsley, Major-General, 1622-56. British Civil Wars & Commonwealth website. Archived from the original on 2 October 2008. Retrieved 8 July 2009.
• Willis, Browne (1750). Notitia Parliamentaria, Part II: A Series or Lists of the Representatives in the several Parliaments held from the Reformation 1541, to the Restoration 1660 ... London. p. 263.

Attribution

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1903). "Worsley, Charles". Index and Epitome. Dictionary of National Biography. Cambridge University Press. p. 1437. (see also main entry lxiii 32)
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Firth, Charles (1900). "Worsley, Charles". In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 63. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 32–33.

• Espinasse, Francis (1874). "VI. The First Member for Manchester". Lancashire Worthies. Simpkin, Marshall, & Co . pp. 96–114.
• Royle, William (1941). "Major General Worsley". History of Rusholme: With a gossipy talk of men and things (PDF). Manchester: Printed at the William Morris Press. pp. 14–17.