Edward Worth (bishop)

Edward Worth (c. 1620–2 August 1669) was a Church of Ireland Bishop of Killaloe, who is mainly remembered now as the founder of the Blue Coat School for the poor boys of Cork.

During the British Interregnum, he remained in Cork, where he set up a local association which he hoped might become the model for a national Church.

Killaloe was a small and rather obscure diocese, and Worth as a bishop had nothing like the influence he had enjoyed in the late 1650s, when he had worked closely with Henry Cromwell in an effort to forge a new religious settlement and create a national church.

Susannah's conversion led to an estrangement between the couple which was never made up, as shown by the fact that her husband in his last will urged her sternly to consider "how she had fallen", and exhorted her to "perform her first act" (i.e. of repentance).

He was a rich man, who left substantial lands to his sons, and money to found St Stephen's Hospital in Cork, popularly known as the Blue Coat School for poor boys, for which act of benevolence he is now mainly remembered.