This thesis is a biographical account of Benjamin Worsley, an individual whose wide-ranging interests touched on many dynamic areas o f H^-century English history. Best known as an expert in colonial and commercial government, Worsley was employed in this capacity both under the Commonwealth (as secretary to the 1650-51 Council of Trade), and the Restored monarchy (on the various councils of 1668-73). By tracing Worsley’s career across these years, we see how the Commonwealth’s positive approach to commerce, embodied by the Navigation Act of 1651, survived the Restoration, when the advancement of trade was increasingly identified as the national interest. This involves analysis both of the content of Worsley’s ideas about trade and the colonies, and of how he used these ideas to gain employment, thus contributing to the institutional and intellectual development of the first British Empire.
As well as considering his public career, the thesis examines Worsley’s attitudes to and interest in a broad range of areas. This is made possible by his association with the circle of Samuel Hartlib, whose papers provide the major source for this study. Beginning with the account provided by the historian Charles Webster, the study considers Worsley’s interest in natural philosophy and especially alchemy (including his friendship with Robert Boyle), other activities such as his employment on the Down Survey of Ireland, and his religious and political opinions. In contrast to Webster, the degree to which these activities formed a coherent project aimed at building a utopian millenarian state, is questioned, and instead we see how Worsley was forced to reshape his goals in the face of frustration and discord, ultimately by denying the state a role in spiritual affairs. Thus Worsley’s life reveals something of the fate of the Hartlibian ideal of ‘universal reform’ in a nation marked by dramatic political, intellectual, and commercial change.