Francis Bridgeman (British Army officer)

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]

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Francis Bridgeman
• Portraits of Francis Bridgeman at the National Portrait Gallery, London
• British Pathé newsreel of the Pharmacists' VTC being inspected by Brigadier General Bridgeman in a London park in 1916