Bridgewater, FRANCIS HENRY EGERTON, EARL OF, son of John Egerton, Bishop of Durham, grandnephew of the first Duke of Bridgewater, was born 11th November 1758, and succeeded his brother as eighth earl, October 21, 1823. Educated for the church, he had previously been prebendary of Durham. He died unmarried, February 11, 1829, and the title became extinct. By his last will, dated February 25, 1825, he left £8000, invested in the public funds, to be paid to the author of the best treatise 'On the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation,' illustrating such work by such arguments as the variety and formation of God's creatures in the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, the effect of digestion, the construction of the hand of man, and by discoveries, ancient and modern, in arts, sciences, and the whole extent of literature. The then president of the Royal Society of London, Davies Gilbert, to whom the selection of the author was left, with the advice of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and a friend of the earl, resolved that the money should be allotted to eight different persons for eight separate treatises. The earl also left upwards of £12,000 to the British Museum, the interest to be employed in the purchase and care of MSS.
The BRIDGEWATER TREATISES are: (1) The Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Constitution of Man, by Thomas Chalmers (1833); (2) Chemistry, Meteorology, and Digestion, by William Prout, M.D. (1834); (3) History, Habits, and Instincts of Animals, by Kirby (1835); (4) Geology and Mineralogy, by Dean Buckland (1837); (5) The Hand, as evincing Design, by Sir Charles Bell (1837); (6) The Adaptation of External Nature to the Physical Condition of Man, by J. Kidd, M.D. (1837); (7) Astronomy and General Physics, by Whewell (1839); (8) Animal and Vegetable Physiology, by P. M. Roget, M.D. (1840). All these works were afterwards republished in Bohn's Scientific Library.