Christopher Wordsworth (October 30, 1807 _ March 20, 1885), English bishop and man of letters, youngest son of Christopher Wordsworth, Master of Trinity, was born in London, and was educated at Winchester and Trinity, Cambridge.

He, like his brother Charles, was distinguished as an athlete as well as for scholarship. He became senior classic, and was elected a fellow and tutor of Trinity in 1830; shortly afterwards he took holy orders. He went for a tour in Greece in 1832-1833, and published various works on its topography and archaeology, the most famous of which is "Wordsworth's" Greece (1839). In 1836 he became Public Orator at Cambridge, and in the same year was appointed headmaster of Harrow, a post he resigned in 1844. He then became a canon of Westminster, and from 1850 to 1870 he held a country living in Berkshire. In 1865 he was made archdeacon of Westminster, and in 1869 bishop of Lincoln.

He was a man of fine character, with a high ideal of ecclesiastical duty, and he spent his money generously on church objects. As a scholar he is best known for his edition of the Greek New Testament (1856_1860), and the Old Testament (1864_1870), with commentaries; but his writings were many in number, and included a volume of devotional verse, The Holy Year (1862), Church History up to A.D. 451 (1881_1883), and Memoirs of his uncle the poet (1851), to whom he was literary executor. His Inscriptiones Pompeianae (1837) was an important contribution to epigraphy.

He married in 1838 Susanna Hartley Frere (d. 1884), and had a family of seven; the-eldest son was John (b. 1843), bishop of Salisbury (1885), and author of Fragments of Early Latin (1874); the eldest daughter, Elizabeth (b. 1840), was the first principal (1879) of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.

His Life, by JH Overton and Elizabeth Wordsworth, was published in 1888.

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.