BRIDGEMAN, Orlando II (1680-1731), of Combs Hall, Suff.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1690-1715, ed. D. Hayton, E. Cruickshanks, S. Handley, 2002
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

1 Apr. 1714 - 1715

Family and Education

bap. 22 June 1680, 1st and o. surv. s. of William Bridgeman† of Pall Mall, Westminster and Combs, under-sec. of state c.1667–81, 1683–94, sec. to the Admiralty 1694–8, by Diana, da. of Peter Vernatti.  m. (1) 16 Apr. 1697, Catherine (d. 1711), 2s. (1 d.v.p.) 1da.; (2) 16 June 1716, Alice (d. 1731), da. of William Shawe of St. Clement’s, Ipswich, Suff., wid. of Mileson Edgar of Red House, nr. Ipswich, s.psuc. fa. 1699.1

Offices Held

Freeman, Dunwich 1705; portman, Orford by 1709.2

Patentee to commrs. of bankrupts by d.3

Biography

In common with his Warwickshire kinsmen, Bridgeman was descended from John Bridgeman who became bishop of Chester in 1619. His great uncle, the bishop’s son Sir Orlando Bridgeman, 1st Bt.†, achieved distinction as a lawyer and served as Charles II’s lord keeper during 1667–72, while his father enjoyed a long career in the senior ranks of government bureaucracy. These two branches of the family were brought closer in 1697 through the marriage of Bridgeman’s sister to his second cousin and namesake (Orlando I*). A local Tory gentleman whose seat stood within the vicinity of Ipswich, Bridgeman took part in a noisy protest early in 1709 against the town’s Whig mayor for corruptly discharging his duties as a recruiting commissioner, and in consequence found himself, together with Leicester Martin* and several other local Tories, charged before the Privy Council in March with obstructing recruitment. As a result, he was removed from the commission of the peace and ordered to be prosecuted, but eventually, after an appeal, three of the offenders, including Bridgeman, were restored in March 1710 ‘by her Majesty’s special command’, Bridgeman and another riding in triumph to their first sessions, accompanied (according to Dyer) ‘by the high sheriff and above 400 gentlemen and freeholders’. He stood for Parliament at Ipswich in 1710, but came bottom of the poll, and in 1713 was defeated again. Though awarded the seat on petition in April 1714, he afterwards made no more ventures into electoral politics, confining himself instead to the adornment of Combs Hall which he had begun to rebuild after 1710. He died on 24 Apr. 1731, leaving Combs to his surviving son. In framing his testamentary statement of devotion to the Church, he expressed particular abhorrence of ‘the present fashionable opinions of deism and, as it is called, freethinking’.4

Ref Volumes: 1690-1715

Author: D. W. Hayton

Notes

  • 1. IGI, London; Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. Colls. n.s. ii. 237–8; Le Neve, Mon. Angl., 1700–15, p. 264.
  • 2. E. Suff. RO, EE6/1144/14; W. Suss. RO, Shillinglee mss, John Hooke to Sir Edward Turnor*, 28 Sept. 1709.
  • 3. Hist. Reg. Chron. 1731, p. 21.
  • 4. Bodl. Rawl. B.428, passim; Boyer, Anne Annals, viii. 158–9; L. K. J. Glassey, Appt. JPs, 189; Add. 70421, newsletter 10 June 1710; Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. Colls. 238; info. from Mr E. Martin.