Francis Egerton, 8th Earl of Bridgewater

Francis Henry Egerton, 8th Earl of Bridgewater (* November 11, 1756, † February 11, 1829 ), until 1823 known as Francis Egerton, was a noted British eccentric, writer and supporter of natural theology. Some of his works he wrote in French as Francois-Henri Egerton. He was editor of the Bridgewater Treatises named after him.

Life

Egerton was the son of John Egerton, who was from 1771 to 1787 Bishop of Durham, and Anne Sophia Grey. His maternal grandparents were Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Kent, and his second wife Sophia Bentinck.

Egerton attended Eton College and then studied at Christ Church College at the University of Oxford. He became a Fellow of All Souls College in 1780 and the Royal Society, 1781. He inherited the title Earl of Bridgewater and a large fortune in 1823.

As eccentric Egerton was known to hold dinner parties for dogs, the dogs were attracted by the finest fashion of the day, to imaginative miniature shoes. Every day was wearing a Egerton new pair of shoes and put the shoes worn in rows, so that he could it measure the passage of time.

As a friend of hunting Egerton held partridges and pigeons with clipped wings in his garden, so he could shoot them in spite of his poor eyesight. Egerton never married and with his death, his title became extinct. He died in Paris, but was buried in Little Gaddesden.

He bequeathed to the British Museum the valuable Egerton manuscripts, consisting of 67 manuscripts that deal with the French and Italian literature, and £ 12,000 to establish a fund Egerton, of which the museum was able to buy far more than 3800 additional manuscripts. In the collection is a work of a medieval unnamed artist who was named after the collection as Egerton Master.

Works

• Description du Plan Incline Basement (Description of the underground hydraulic lift, online version at Google Books)