Francis Henry Egerton, 8th earl of Bridgewater
1756–1829
Scholar and patron of learning. His literary works, many on his notable ancestors, were mostly privately published. Bequeathed £8000 in his will to commission works illustrating the "power, wisdom, and goodness of God as manifested in the Creation"; the money to be divided among eight persons. The resulting essays have become known as the Bridgewater treatises. FRS 1781.
Sources
ODNB
Record of the Royal Society of London
Topham 1993.
Bibliography
ODNB: Oxford dictionary of national biography: from the earliest times to the year 2000. (Revised edition.) Edited by H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. 60 vols. and index. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2004.
Record of the Royal Society of London: The record of the Royal Society of London for the promotion of natural knowledge. 4th edition. London: Royal Society. 1940.
Topham, Jonathan Richard. 1993. ‘An infinite variety of arguments’: the Bridgewater treatises and British natural theology in the 1830s. PhD dissertation: University of Lancaster.
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