Derek John Worlock

The Most Reverend Derek Worlock CH
Archbishop of Liverpool
Derek Worlock, memorial portrait in Liverpool
Church	Roman Catholic Church
Archdiocese	Archdiocese of Liverpool
Province	Province of Liverpool
Appointed	7 February 1976
Term ended	6 February 1996
Predecessor	George Andrew Beck
Successor	Patrick Altham Kelly
Orders
Ordination	3 June 1944
Consecration	21 December 1965 by John Carmel Heenan
Personal details
Birth name	Derek John Harford Worlock
Born	4 February 1920 London
Died	6 February 1996 Liverpool
Buried	Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, Liverpool
Nationality	British
Denomination	Roman Catholic
Parents	Captain Harford Worlock and Dora Worlock (née Hoblyn).
Previous post	Bishop of Portsmouth
Motto	Caritas Christi eluceat

Derek John Harford Worlock, CH (4 February 1920 – 6 February 1996) was an English prelate of the Roman Catholic Church; his highest posting was as Archbishop of Liverpool.

Worlock was born in London on 4 February 1920, the son of Captain Harford Worlock, a journalist, and his wife, Dora (née Hoblyn), a suffragette (or as she called herself, a "suffragist"). His father, a journalist turned Conservative political agent, attended Keble College, Oxford, and planned to become a priest in the Church of England; many of his forebears had been Anglican clergy. However, Harford and Dora Worlock converted to Roman Catholicism and raised their son in that faith.

Derek Worlock was a student at St Edmund's College from 1934 to 1944. By this time the family home was in Winchester. As a small boy he was rebuked for "having an answer to everything", a trait that remained. He was ordained to the priesthood at Westminster Cathedral on 3 June 1944, seminarians being exempt from military service so they could be rushed through to serve as chaplains. In theory he belonged to the Diocese of Portsmouth, but its bishop, William Timothy Cotter, expected his future priests to have an Irish background. Not long afterwards, he was appointed private secretary to Cardinal Griffin, and assisted successive cardinal-archbishops of Westminster for almost two decades. He attended every session of the Second Vatican Council between 1962 and 1965.