Francis Henry Egerton, 8th Earl of Bridgewater, FRS,FSA (11 November 1756 – 11 February 1829), known as Francis Egerton until 1823, was a noted Britisheccentric from the Egerton family and supporter of natural theology.[1]
Egerton was a Church of England clergyman who held the rectories of Myddle (1781) and Whitchurch (1797) in Shropshire, but the duties were performed by a proxy. He succeeded his brother John in the earldom in 1823, and spent the latter part of his life in Paris. He was a fair scholar, and a zealous naturalist and antiquarian. When he died in February 1829 the earldom became extinct.[2]
Memorial to Francis Egerton, 8th Earl of Bridgewater in the Bridgewater Chapel at St. Peter and St. Paul Church, Little Gaddesden, where many Egerton family members are buried
Egerton was eccentric. According to the Parisian police, Egerton kept dogs and cats in his house which he dressed as ladies and gentlemen and would take them with him in his carriage.[3] he kept partridges and pigeons with clipped wings in his garden, allowing him to shoot them despite failing eyesight.[citation needed] He never married, and upon his death, his title became extinct.[2] He was buried at Little Gaddesden, Hertfordshire.[4]
A Freemason who had been Initiated in France, from 10 August 1786 until 1800 Egerton was Provincial Grand Master for Shropshire and North Wales, adding Staffordshire, Flint, Denbighshire and Montgomeryshire to his responsibilities in 1791. For all that this was an extensive area, the duties associated with the position at that time were light, and in many cases (up to 1795) left in the hands of his Deputy/Provincial Grand Secretary Charles Shirreff. The Secretary of Whitchurch Lodge no. 1, John Collier, was one of the curates who deputised for Egerton at the church in the town.
He bequeathed to the British Museum the valuable Egerton Manuscripts,[2] consisting of 67[citation needed]manuscripts dealing with the literature of France and Italy, and £12,000[2] to establish the Egerton Fund from which the Museum could purchase additional manuscripts. More than 3800 manuscripts have been purchased using the Egerton fund.[citation needed]
He also left £8,000 at the disposal of the president of the Royal Society, to be paid to the author or authors who might be selected to write and publish 1000 copies of a treatise "On the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation". The resulting eight Bridgewater Treatises first appeared between 1833 and 1836, and afterwards in Bohn's Scientific Library.[2][7]
Egerton, Francis Henry (1812), Description du plan incliné souterrain, au bureau des Annales des Arts et Manufactures, rue J.J. Rousseau, n. 1, Imprimerie de Chaignieau Aîné
Bridgewater Chapel, Little Gaddesden Church, 10 February 2015, retrieved 11 April 2017
Monuments, Little Gaddesden Church, 10 February 2015, retrieved 11 April 2017
Cokayne, G.E.; et al., eds. (2000), The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, vol. II (reprint in 6 volumes ed.), Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, p. 316
Mosley, Charles, ed. (2003), Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, vol. 1 (106th in 2 volumes ed.), Crans, Switzerland: Burke's Peerage, pp. 1232–1233
Temperton, Harold (1981), A History of Craft Freemasonry in Shropshire
Caufield, Catherine (1981), The Emperor of the United States and Other Magnificent British Eccentrics, Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp. 77–79, ISBN0-7100-0957-7
Topham, Jonathan (2022). Reading the Book of Nature How Eight Best Sellers Reconnected Christianity and the Sciences on the Eve of the Victorian Age. University of Chicago Press. ISBN978-0-226-81576-3.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Bridgewater, Francis Henry Egerton, 8th Earl of". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 4 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 558.
