The Honourable Francis Charles Bridgeman JP | |
---|---|
Born | 4 July 1846 |
Died | 14 September 1917 | (aged 71)
Service/ | British Army |
Rank | Brigadier-General |
Unit | Scots Fusilier Guards |
Battles/wars | |
Relations | Orlando Bridgeman, 3rd Earl of Bradford (father) Reginald Bridgeman (son) Orlando Bridgeman (son) |
Other work | Member of Parliament Justice of the Peace |
Brigadier-General Francis Charles Bridgeman JP (4 July 1846 – 14 September 1917),[1] styled The Honourable from 1865, was a British Army officer and Conservative politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1885 to 1895.
Bridgeman was the second son of Orlando Bridgeman, 3rd Earl of Bradford.[2] His mother was Hon. Selina Louisa Forester, the daughter of Cecil Weld-Forester, 1st Baron Forester.[2] Bridgeman was educated in Harrow School and joined afterwards the British Army.[3]
In 1865, he purchased a commission into the Scots Fusilier Guards as an ensign and lieutenant[4] and four years later became a lieutenant and captain.[5] Bridgeman was nominated an aide-de-camp to Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach in 1875, a position he held until the following year.[6] He was promoted to captain and lieutenant-colonel in 1877.[7] A year later, Bridgeman accompanied a special mission sent to Spain and attended the marriage of King Alfonso XII, where he was invested a knight of the Order of Isabella the Catholic.[6] In 1883 Bridgeman was advanced to major.[8]
He took part in the Suakin Expedition in 1885 and upon his return he entered the British House of Commons, having been elected for Bolton; he represented the constituency for a decade until 1895.[9] At three previous elections he had unsuccessfully contested Stafford in 1874, Tamworth in 1878, and Bolton itself in 1880.[10]
Bridgeman obtained a colonelship in 1887[11] and received command of the Staffordshire Brigade in 1892.[12] He retired from the army 27 March 1894.[13] During the First World War he became commandant of the central group of the London Volunteer Regiment of the Volunteer Training Corps in 1916.[14] Bridgeman was a Justice of the Peace for the counties of Staffordshire and Shropshire.[15]
Bridgeman married, firstly, Gertude Cecilia Hanbury, daughter of George Hanbury, on 26 July 1883; they had five children.[15] She died in 1911, and after two years as a widower, Bridgeman married, secondly, Agnes Florence Briscoe, daughter of Richard Holt Briscoe, on 27 November 1913.[15]
In later life he lived at The Priory, Beech Hill, near Reading, Berkshire.[16] He died suddenly, while riding his horse near Reading,[17] in 1917, aged seventy-one, and was survived by his second wife until 1946.[1] His oldest son was the diplomat Reginald Bridgeman.[1]
Bridgeman is commemorated by a stained glass window by Christopher Whall at St Andrew's Church, Weston-under-Lizard, Staffordshire, completed in 1918.[18]