Richard Nicholls Worth

Richard Nicholls Worth (1837–1896) was a Plymouth journalist, geologist and historian, born in Devonport on 19 July 1837, the eldest son of a builder. Apprenticed at fourteen to the Devonport and Plymouth Telegraph, he went on to work for the Western Morning News and to edit the Northern Daily Express in Newcastle, before returning to Devon and joining the Plymouth printers W. Brendon & Son in 1877.

He devoted his spare time to the history and geology of the West Country, becoming a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1875 and twice president of the Plymouth Institution, as well as president of the Devonshire Association in 1891. Over roughly 140 papers and several books, he traced the histories of Devonport, Plymouth and Devon itself, alongside a series of touring guides that took travellers around the county.

He married Lydia Amelia Davies in 1860; his son Richard Hansford Worth followed him into Dartmoor scholarship and became one of the moor's foremost archaeologists. Worth died suddenly at Shaugh Prior, on the southern edge of Dartmoor, on 3 July 1896, and is buried in the village churchyard.

Sources: Dictionary of National Biography (1900), via Wikisource · Wikipedia · Dartmoor Walks (Worth archive). Photo: Worth at Drizzlecombe, 1889, by his son R. H. Worth, via Dartmoor Walks.

Books on this site

• History of Plymouth (1871)
• A History of Devonshire (1886)
• The Three Towns Bibliotheca (1871)
• Tourist's Guide to Devonshire (1886)
• Tourist's Guide to North Devon and the Exmoor District (1880)
• Tourist's Guide to South Devon (1883)