Samuel Worthington
| First name | Samuel |
|---|---|
| Last name | Worthington |
| Country of Origin | England |
| Date of Birth | 7/8/1826 |
| Year of Arrival in Australia | 1853 |
| Submitted by | Murray Williamson |
Story
A letter to his mother in 1855 indicates that he had been in some unspecified personal diffculty in England, and this was the reason for his departure to Australia.
Samuel was the son of Isaac Worthington, a draper in Mansfield, England. His mother, Charlotte Amelia Cheeke, was the daughter of a solicitor and mayor of Evesham whose family traced back to Sir John Cheeke (Professor of Greek, Provost of King’s College Cambridge in 1548 and tutor to Henry VIII’s son, the future Edward VI) and also to the Mosley family (from whom Queen Elizabeth II is a descendant).
Often impecunious, Samuel worked as a day labourer at first. However, he had some influential relatives in Australia – his uncles Alfred Agg (Colonial Storekeeper in Victoria in 1856) and NSW Judge Alfred Cheeke.
In 1855 Samuel was the proprietor of the Snake Valley Inn, in present day Stanley, near Beechworth in Victoria. He worked for George Gammon, Chemist, in Beechworth in 1856, before conducting his own pharmacies in Chiltern, Rutherglen and Wahgunyah when those towns boomed in the gold rush days.
Samuel died in 1878, and is buried in John Foord’s private cemetry in Wahgunyah. On his death his daughters went with his wife, Caroline Amanda Cooper, to the Cobar/Nymagee area, while his sons found employment in Melbourne.