Benjamin Worsley

Benjamin Worsley (1618-1673) was an English physician, Surveyor-General of Ireland, experimental scientist, civil servant and intellectual figure of Commonwealth England. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin, but may not have graduated [Newman and Principe, p. 239.] .

His survey of land in Ireland was of land claimed by Oliver Cromwell under the Act of Settlement. Worsley was from 1651 a physician in Cromwell's army, but took to surveying around 1653. His work was too rough-and-ready to be of practical help to arranging land grants to soldiers, and William Petty took over. [Mary Poovey, "A History of the Modern Fact" (1998), p. 121.]

He was an alchemical writer, and associate of Robert Boyle, and knew George Starkey from 1650. He was a major figure of the 'Invisible College' of the 1640s [Young, p. 218.] .

Worseley associated with the circle around Samuel Hartlib and John Dury, and on their behalf visited Johann Rudolph Glauber [Newman and Principe, p. 212; Young Ch. 7.] in 1648-9. Worsley followed the theories of Michael Sendivogius and Clovis Hesteau. He was a projector in the manufacture of saltpeter (1646) [Newman and Principe, p. 239.] . Later, probably in the mid-1650s, he wrote "De nitro theses quaedam" [Newman and Principe, p. 239-44.] . He also took up the alchemy of transmutation, with Johann Moriaen and Johann Siberius Kuffler [Newman and Principe, p. 244-49.] .

He was also probably heterodox in religion [Christopher Hill, "Milton and the English Revolution", p.294.] .

References and sources

;Notes

;Sources
* William R. Newman and Lawrence M. Principe (2002), "Alchemy Tried in the Fire"
*J. T. Young (1998), "Faith, Alchemy and Natural Philosophy: Johann Moriaen, Reformed Intelligencer, and the Hartlib Circle"
*Clericuzio, Antonio, "New Light on Benjamin Worsley's Natural Philosophy', in Mark Greengrass, Michael Leslie and Timothy Raylor (eds.), Samuel Hartlib and Universal Reformation: Studies in Intellectual Communication (Cambridge University Press, 1994), 236-46
*Webster, C. (1994) "Benjamin Worsley: engineering for universal reform from the Invisible College to the Navigation Act" in Samuel Hartlib and Universal Reformation: Studies in Intellectual Communication (1994)