BRIDGEMAN, Orlando (1762-1825), of Stoke Hall, Derbys.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1790-1820, ed. R. Thorne, 1986
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

1784 - 5 June 1800

Family and Education

b. 19 Mar. 1762, 3rd but 1st surv. s. of Sir Henry Bridgeman*, 5th Bt., and bro. of Hon. John Simpson*. educ. Harrow 1770-1; Hackney; Trinity Coll. Camb. 1782. m. 29 May 1788, Hon. Lucy Elizabeth Byng, da. and coh. of George, 4th Visct. Torrington, 4s. 1da. suc. fa. as 2nd Baron Bradford 5 June 1800; cos. Charles Henry Coote, 7th Earl of Mountrath [I] in his English estates 1802; cr. Earl of Bradford 30 Nov. 1815.

Offices Held

Capt. 1 R. Lancs. militia 1791, maj. 1794; lt.-col. Salop militia 1799, col. 1804; capt. Staffs. yeomanry 1800-4.

Biography

Bridgeman, who had joined Brooks’s in 1785 and the Whig Club in 1786, continued to sit for Wigan on the family interest, bolstered by the Duke of Portland. He voted against government on Oczakov, 12 Apr. 1791, but did not join his father in doing so on 1 Mar. 1792. He followed his father’s line thereafter, was listed among Members ‘supposed attached’ to Portland in December 1792 and supported government after the outbreak of war, though he cast votes in favour of adding Fox to the committees on the Bank, 9 Mar., and the public debts, 13 Mar. 1797. He was a teller for the majority in favour of the Lancaster sessions bill, 14 May 1798. A defaulter ordered to attend, 6 Mar. 1793,1 he is not known to have spoken in the House before he succeeded to the peerage conferred on his father on the junction of the Portland Whigs with government. He lost control of Wigan in 1802 and made an unsuccessful bid to revive his interest in 1820.

Bridgeman, who was advanced in the peerage in 1815, was a leading agricultural improver, with an income of £26,000 a year. Edward John Littleton wrote in 1818 that ‘his spirits, which are sometimes deeply depressed, have been lately most extravagant and make him talk and act in a manner which denotes a tendency to insanity, which I believe is in the family’.2 He died 7 Sept. 1825.

Ref Volumes: 1790-1820

Author: M. H. Port

Notes

  • 1. CJ, xlviii. 348.
  • 2. Staffs. RO, Hatherton diary, 28 Dec. 1818.