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WORGE, Richard Alchorne (1707-74), of Bedford Row, Holborn, London.
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Biography Detail
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Constituency
Dates
Family and Education
b. 1707,1 2nd s. of Thomas Worge of Eastbourne, Suss. by Mary, da. of Thomas Alchorne of Eastbourne Place. m. Feb. 1766, Jane Bowman, from nr. Ormskirk, Lancs., 1da.
Offices Held
Lt. 11 Ft. 1732; capt. 25 Ft. 1738, maj. 1745; lt.-col. 9 Ft. 1754; gov. Senegal 1758-68; lt.-col. 86 Ft. 1759; col. army 1762; maj.-gen. 1770.
Biography
Thomas Worge was agent to Lord Wilmington,2 and supported him and the Duke of Newcastle in Sussex electoral affairs. Richard Worge wrote to Newcastle, 4 May 1760: ‘Your Grace did me the honour to give me an introduction into the army’, and mentioned having been ‘35 years in the service’, which would place his first entering it c.1724.3 During that time he ‘was never a year absent’ from duty. He was severely wounded at Fontenoy, distinguished himself at Culloden, and next served in Flanders. Cumberland called Worge his ‘rough diamond’.4 John Calcraft wrote on 8 Sept. 1758 to a friend in Ireland,5 where Worge was then stationed, asking him to secure for Calcraft Worge’s agency: ‘He is an odd gentleman, I know, and now Johnny Waldegrave is away, I do not know a soul that has influence with him.’ In 1768 he was returned for Stockbridge, standing apparently on a joint interest with George Macartney, Lord Holland’s candidate. ‘Sir George Macartney and General Worge of Senegal [are] the candidates’, wrote James Harris, 9 Aug. 1767, ‘the last with about £7,000.’6 They were returned unopposed.
There is no record of Worge having ever spoken in the House, and the only vote he is known to have given was with the Opposition, 25 Jan. 1770, on Dowdeswell’s motion on the Middlesex election. He took the Chiltern Hundreds in April 1772, and died 4 May 1774.
