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]