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BRIDGEWATER, DUKE OF. 



BRIDGEWATER, EARL OF. 



Ms 



revenues King Brian supported a rude but royal magnificence at his 

 chief residence of Kincora, near the present town of Killaloe, in the 

 county of Clare. He had also castles at Tara and Caahel. Brian 

 continued for mauy years to rule his dominions with vigour and 

 prosperity, reducing the Danes and subduing their native allies, 

 building numerous duns or castles, causing roads and bridges to be 

 constructed, and enforcing the law by taking hostages from all the 

 petty kings of the country. Having however disputed with Maelmora, 

 the king of Leinster, Maelmora revolted, and, inviting a new invasion 

 of Danes to his assistance, brought on the battle of Clantarf, in which 

 King Brian fell, after gaining a glorious victory over the united forces 

 of the invaders and revolted natives, on Good Friday, 1014. Brian 

 and his son Murrogh, who fell in the same battle, were buried together 

 in the cathedral of Armagh. The funeral obsequies lasted twelve days 

 and nights, and the possession of the heroic remains was afterwards 

 contested by rival potentates. Brian is said to have defeated the Danes 

 in twenty-five pitched battles: prior to the battle of Clantarf he had 

 confined them to the cities of Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, and 

 Limerick; and the final blow which he gave their power in that 

 engagement they never recovered. He was the founder of the nume- 

 rous sept of O'Brien, or Ua being a distinctive adnomeu not assumed 

 by Irish families till after his time. This national prefix means 

 ' descendant of,' or ' of the kindred of,' and was originally supplied by 

 the more ancient Mac, which means 'son.' (O'Connor, Her. Uib. Scrip. 

 Vet. ; MKS. Hittory of Ireland, lib. R. I. Academy.) 



BRIDGEWATER, FRANCIS EGERTON, DUKE OF, born in 

 1736, was the youngest son of Scroop, fourth Earl and first Duke of 

 Bridgewater, by Lady Rachel Russel, daughter of Wriothesley, second 

 duke of Bedford. He succeeded his brother, the second duke, in 1748. 

 He was the heir of the Lord Chancellor Ellesmere in the sixth degree 

 of descent. In his youth he was extremely thin and delicate, and 

 his apparent predisposition to pulmonary complaints was so decided, 

 that his education was entirely neglected. He not only got the better 

 of this early tendency, which had proved very fatal to his family, but 

 became a very strong man and extremely corpulent. As his bad 

 health took him entirely out of society, he contracted habits of 

 extreme shyness, which made him avoid company, especially that of 

 ladies. But though the defects of his early education and the singu- 

 larity of his character were not unfrequently exhibited, his mind was 

 naturally of a powerful and determined character, bordering perhaps 

 occasionally on obstinacy. It was in fact owing to this quality, and 

 his extraordinary enterprise, sagacity, and prudence, that he earned a 

 title of far higher distinction than that which he derived from the 

 accident of birth. One of the estates which he inherited, situated at 

 Worsley, near Manchester, contained a rich bed of coal, but it was 

 comparatively of little value, in consequence of the heavy expense of 

 land carriage and the inadequate means of communication afforded 

 by the Irwell, which, though rendered navigable, was a tedious and 

 imperfect medium for carrying on an extensive traffic. In deliberating 

 on the best means of supplying Manchester with coal from his pits 

 at Worsley, the obstacles were so great as to lead hitn to consider a 

 great variety of expedients for overcoming them. At length he fixed 

 on the expedient of constructing a navigable canal ; and in the 32nd 

 Geo. II. (1758-9) he obtained, though not without some difficulty, the 

 Act of Parliament which enabled him to commence the first navigable 

 canal constructed in Great Britain in modern times. From this cir- 

 cumstance he is frequently styled 'the Father of British Inland 

 Navigation.' It was the Duke of Bridgewater's determination to 

 render bis canal an perfect as possible, and to adopt a line which 

 should render it unnecessary to have recourse to locks. The duke 

 had the good fortune to select as engineer a man whose genius was 

 unfettered by commonplace rules, and one who was exactly fitted to 

 carry into execution a project, not only perfectly novel at the time, 

 but which, even at the present day, would demand the highest 

 practical science. [BRINDLEY.] The duke nobly supported Brindley 

 in his bold and original views, in the merit of which he undeniably 

 deserves to share. When Brindley proposed carrying the canal over the 

 Mersey and Irwell navigation at Barton, by an aqueduct 39 feet above 

 the surface of the water, he desired, for tho satisfaction of his employer, 

 to have another engineer consulted. It is reported that the individual 

 called in to give his opiuion, said, on being taken to the place where 

 the intended aqueduct was to be constructed, that he " had ofteu 

 heard of ca-tles in the air, but never was shown before where any of 

 them were to be erected." The duke was not however deterred by 

 the difficulty and magnitude of Brindley 's plans, nor by the unfa- 

 vourable report of the other engineer, from prosecuting the work 

 under his direction. He was rewarded for his enterprising spirit 

 and confidence by the successful completion of the work, which is 

 200 yards in length. A considerable portion of tho canal between 

 Worsluy Mill and Manchester was executed under the provisions of 

 the first Act of Parliament, but a second Act was obtained in the 

 following year for the purpose of making some changes in the Hue. 

 The whole of the canal from Worsley to Manchester, with the sub- 

 terraneous works at the coal-mines at Worsley, was executed under 

 these two Acts : the underground canals and tunnels at Worsley are 

 laid to have cost 168,000t, and to be 18 miles in length. Ill 1762 a 

 third application was made to parliament, and the necessary powers 

 were obtained for opening an artificial water communication with 



Liverpool by the Mersey. Subsequent acts enabled the duke to com- 

 plete his designs. The length of the maiu line is above 27 miles all 

 on the same level, which has rendered great embankments necessary, 

 as the canal crosses several depressions. At Preston-Brook the Grand 

 Trunk Canal (the name by which this navigation is familiarly known 

 in the country) joins the Duke of Bridgewater's Canal, which thus 

 connects it with the Trent and with Birmingham and London, and 

 with Bristol. With the exception of that part between Worsley and 

 Leigh, every part of the canal was executed, under the direction of 

 Brindley, in about five years. The aqueduct at Barton was opened 

 July 17th 1761, and soon afterwards the whole line. It cannot be 

 computed what the total expense incurred by the Duke of Bridge- 

 water in completing this great undertaking amounted to. The duke's 

 canal however has done as much to promote the public prosperity as 

 to increase the wealth of the noble projector's heirs. Before its con- 

 struction coals were retailed to the poor at Manchester at Id. per 

 cwt., but after its completion they were sold at Z\d., and six score 

 were given to the cwt. The carriage by water from Manchester to 

 Liverpool was 12s. per ton; by land it was as high as 40s. ; on the 

 duke's canal the charge was 6s. per ton. When the line of his canal 

 had been tripled in length, the duke never demanded larger tolls, but 

 contented himself with the profits which the increase of traffic fairly 

 brought him. The duke was also one of the most zealous promoters 

 of the Grand Trunk Navigation, and his brother-in-law, the first 

 Marquis of Stafford, being at its head, they mutually aided each other. 

 In the construction of his great work he had exhausted his credit to 

 the utmost ; he could not raise 500/. on his bill in the city of London, 

 and his agent, Mr. Gilbert, had frequently to ride over the counties 

 of Cheshire and Lancashire, from door to door, to raise sums, from 

 1 0/. and upwards, to enable him to pay the Saturday night's demand. 

 At the same time the duke restricted himself to the simplest fare, 

 and lived with scarcely a servant to attend upon him. His great 

 estates at Ellesmere, which he held in fee simple, were quite unen- 

 cumbered, but no persuasion would induce him to resort to the easy 

 method of relieving himself from difficulties by borrowing money 

 upon them. When in London he would not undertake the trouble of 

 keeping house ; he therefore made an allowance of 2000/. to a friend 

 of his (Mr. Carvill), with whom he dined, when not otherwise engaged, 

 and to whose tuble he had the privilege of inviting his intimate 

 friends. The Duke of Bridgewater never took an active part in 

 politics ; but he was a decided friend to the Pitt Administration, aud 

 a large contributor to the Loyalty Loan. He died March 8th 1803, 

 and never having been married, his great wealth was distributed 

 among the collateral branches of his family. 



BKIDGEWATER, EARL OF. The Right Honourable and Reverend 

 Frances Henry Egerton, eighth Earl of Bridgewater, ninth Viscount 

 Brackley, and Baron Ellesmere, was born November 11, 1758. He was 

 the younger of two sons of John, Lord Bishop of Durham, by Lady 

 A. S. Grey, daughter of Henry, duke of Kent (chamberlain to Queen, 

 Anne). He was educated at Eton and at All Souls' College, Oxford, 

 where he took the degree of M.A. in 1780. In the same year his 

 father appointed him a prebendary of Durham Cathedral, and in the 

 following year the Duke of Bridgewater presented him to the rectory 

 of Middle in Shropshire. In 1796 he published at Oxford, in a hand- 

 some volume royal 4to, an edition of the ' Hippolytus ' of Euripides, 

 with scholia, Latin version, various readings, and copious notes in 

 Latin by Valckenaer and others. In 1797 the Duke of Bridgewater 

 presented him to the rectory of Whitchurch in Shropshire. His 

 brother, who was the seventh Earl of Bridgewater, died in 1823, leaving 

 no children, and Mr. Ei;erton then succeeded him in his titles. The 

 Earl of Bridgewater resided mauy years in Paris, where he died in 

 1829, and the title then became extinct. In the latter years of his 

 life he fell into very eccentric habits, such as keeping a large number 

 of dogs and cats, and having some of his favourite dogs occasionally 

 dressed like men, and placed at his table to dine with him. 



The Earl of Bridgewater, by his will, dated February 25, 1825, left 

 8000J. to bo at the disposal of the President of the Royal Society of 

 London, to be paid to the person or persons nominated by him, to 

 write, print, and publish 1000 copies of a work ' On the power, wiadotn, 

 and goodness of God. as manifested ia the creation ; illustrating such 

 work by all reasonable arguments, as, for instance, the variety and 

 formation of God's creatures iu the animal, vegetable, and mineral 

 kingdoms ; the effect of digestion ; the construction of the ham! of 

 man; and an infinite variety of other arguments; as also by dis- 

 coveries ancient and modern, in arts, sciences, and the whole extent of 

 literature.' He also desired that the profits arising from the sale of 

 the works so published should be paid to the authors of the works. 



The then President of the Royal Society, Davies Gilbert, requested 

 the assistance of the Archbishop of Canterbury and of the Bishop of 

 London in determining on the best mode of carrying into effect the 

 intentions of the testator. Acting with their advice, he appointed 

 eight gentlemen to write separate treatises on the different braurhes 

 of the subject, which treatises have been published, aud are as follows: 

 1. By the Rev. Thomas Chalmers, D.D. ' The Adaptation of 

 External Nature to the Moral aud Intellectual Constitution of Man,' 

 2 vols. 8vo, Glasgow, 1839. 2. By John Kidd, M.D. ' The Adaptation 

 of External Nature to the Physical Condition of Man,' 8vo, London, 

 1837. 3. By the Rev. William WhewelL 'Astronomy and General 



