Charles Nathaniel Worsley trained in London, Antwerp, and Paris. He began exhibiting at the Royal Institute for Artists in 1887 and then at the Royal Academy in 1889. He traveled extensively throughout Europe between 1893 and 1895 exhibiting at the Paris Salon.

Worsley made frequent sketching expeditions to Europe during this period and found his favourite sites in Majorca, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland.

In 1896 Worsley and his wife left for Australia and by 1898 they had moved to New Zealand. Worsley exhibited with the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts as well the major regional art societies in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Otago.

Worsley was an academic painter who sketched as he traveled and then completed his paintings in his studio to achieve his naturalistic yet romanticised effect. He worked mostly in watercolours and painted city scenes as well as scenic pictures of the landscape of New Zealand.

Worsley continued to travel overseas and returned to New Zealand in 1911 where he lived in Auckland for a number of years. After he left New Zealand in 1918 he continued to send paintings back here and to Australia. He died in Brescia, Italy in 1923.