Edgar Barton Worthington, son of Edgar and Amy Worthington, was born on 13 Jan 1905, and educated at Rugby School and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he took a First in Zoology. Two months later, he was in Africa, conducting research on the fisheries of the Victoria Nyanza. In 1930, he married Stella Desmond Johnson, who shared his research interests and was a member of his early expeditions. Jointly, in 1933, they published a book entitled Inland Waters of Africa. Their three daughters all followed in their parents' scientific footsteps, after receiving most of their education in Kenya.

From 1930 to 1933, Worthington was Balfour Student at Cambridge and, from 1933 to 1937, Demonstrator in Zoology. He was leader of the 1930 Cambridge expedition to the East African Lakes, and was later Scientist to Lord Hailey's African Research Survey, 1934-1937. Appointed Director of Laboratories and Secretary of the Freshwater Biological Association, Wray Castle, Ambleside in 1937 (a post he held until 1946), it was not long before he returned to Africa and also visited the Middle East to carry out a war-time survey of scientific resources.

After the war, he spent nine years in East Africa and the Belgian Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo): in 1946, he prepared a Development Plan for Uganda, and was appointed Scientific Secretary to the Colonial Research Council (1946-1949), 'with the object of assessing the part which research could and should play in connection with colonial developments in his part of the world, and generally keeping contacts going between scientists in East Africa and the Colonial Office etc.' (letter from Worthington to Sir Herbert Howard, 24 Jan 1947). He was also Scientific Secretary to the East African High Commission (1950-1951).

A new appointment, as Secretary-General to the Scientific Council for Africa South of the Sahara, followed in 1951; he held this post until the Council merged with the Commission for Technical Co-operation in Africa South of the Sahara in Jan 1955. The new Joint Secretariat sponsored the writing of his book Science in the Development of Africa (1958) during the period 1955-1956.

In 1957, being convinced that future human needs depended on the conservation of natural resources, he accepted the post of Deputy Director-General (Scientific) Nature Conservancy; he held this post until 1965, while his wife ran their farm in Sussex. In 1967, he was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire).

After working as Scientific Director of the International Biological Programme from 1964 to 1974, he was President of the Committee on Water Resources until 1977. Having retired, he was still member of various organisations (for example, the Commonwealth Human Ecology Council), and became Member of Honour of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature in 1978. Two years after the death of his first wife, he married Harriett Stockton in 1980, and he died on 14 Dec 2001.