Dictionary of Irish Architects 1720 - 1940

Dublin city surveyor, 1795-1801. David Worthington was practising as a land surveyor and measurer in Dublin from 1790 or earlier.(1) He was appointed to the post of city surveyor in in succession to SAMUEL BYRON  SAMUEL BYRON in October 1795(2) and held it until his death in 1801, when he was succeeded by ARTHUR RICHARDS NEVILLE. ARTHUR RICHARDS NEVILLE. (3)

Worthington was presumably a son or close relative of H. Worthington, timber merchant and builder, with whom he shared an address at 81 Rogerson's Quay in 1790. There were Worthingtons in the carpentry trade in Dublin from the beginning of the eighteenth century,(4) and in the latter half of the century two were admitted freemen of the city as members of the Carpenters' Guild by virtue of service: Humphry Worthington in 1774 and David Worthington in 1790.(5)

A Mr Worthington was a subscriber to Thomas Malton's, The Seats and Demesnes of the nobility and gentry of Ireland (Dublin, 1783-1794).

Addresses:(6) 81 Rogerson's Quay, 1790; 25 Townsend Street, 1791-92; 62 Townsend Street, 1793-1801.



References



(1) The entry on Worthington in Sarah Bendall, ed., Dictionary of Land Surveyors and Local Map-Makers of Great Britain and Ireland 1530-1850 (2nd edition, 1997), II, 570, gives 1779 as the date at which he is first heard of.
(2) CARD XIV, 429.
(3) CARD XV, 216. The Corporation made payments to him in 1799, 1800, 1801 and -posthumously to his representatives - in 1802 (CARD XV, 103,151,183,240). For his maps, see Mary Clarke, The Book of Maps of the Dublin City Surveyors 1695-1827 (Dublin Corporation, 1983), xv,3,6,21,22,36,46,49.
(4) Probate of the will of a Joseph Worthington, carpenter, of Dublin was granted in 1714 (Index of Irish Wills 1484-1858 (Eneclann CD-ROM), Document ID 70157).
(5) 'An alphabetical list of the Freemen of the City of Dublin, 1774-1824', The Irish Ancestor XV (1983), Nos. 1 & 2, 124,127.
(6) From Wilson's Dublin Directory, 1790-1801.