His younger brother Christopher (1848–1938) was to become a noted liturgical scholar, and his eldest sister Dame Elizabeth Wordsworth was a pioneer of women's higher education and the founding Principal of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.

In the following year he was elected Craven Scholar and a Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford and was ordained in the Church of England.

In 1878, Oxford University Press accepted a proposal from him for the publication of a critical edition of the Vulgate text of the New Testament, which should reproduce, so far as possible, the exact words of Jerome.

As a preliminary to the substantive publication, certain important manuscripts were from 1883 onwards printed in full in the series Old-Latin Biblical Texts.

Wordsworth undertook three major foreign visits during his episcopacy, the first to New Zealand as he recovered from the death of his first wife, and the others to Sweden in 1909 and to America in 1910.

'"[citation needed] The school's motto – and his father's epitaph – "Veritas in Caritate" survives him to the present day.