Vice-Admiral Hon. Charles Orlando Bridgeman (5 February 1791 – 13 April 1860) was a Royal Navy officer who saw active service in the Napoleonic Wars and the Greek War of Independence.
Life.
Bridgeman was a younger son of Orlando Bridgeman, 1st Earl of Bradford, by his marriage to Lucy Elizabeth Byng, daughter of George Byng, 4th Viscount Torrington and Lady Lucy Boyle, a daughter of John Boyle, 5th Earl of Cork. His siblings were: George Bridgeman, 2nd Earl of Bradford, Lady Lucy Whitmore, Hon. Orlando Henry Bridgeman, and Reverend Hon. Henry Edmund Bridgeman. He was educated at Harrow. On 18 June 1804, at the age of thirteen, he joined the navy as a first class volunteer on the almost-new HMS "Repulse".
In 1805, Bridgeman was rated as a midshipman, and during the Napoleonic Wars, he saw active service on blockade duty with Robert Calder, later serving in the Dardanelles Operation of 1807 and in the expedition to the Scheldt. In November 1809 he joined HMS "Manilla" under Captain George Francis Seymour, and on 10 September 1810 was promoted lieutenant in HMS "Semiramis". On 1 May 1811 he transferred to HMS "Revenge" as Flag-Lieutenant to Rear Admiral Arthur Kaye Legge and served at the defence of Cadiz. On 8 March 1813 he joined HMS "Bellerophon" and on 2 April 1814 the king's yacht HMS "Royal Sovereign". He commanded HMS "Badger" from 12 December 1814 until 28 August 1816, on the West India station, taking part in the invasion of Guadeloupe of 1815. His next command was "Icarus", a ten-gun brig-sloop, from 24 June 1817 until 2 September 1819, on the South America station. In 1819 he was promoted captain. His last command, from 7 September 1827 to May 1830, was HMS "Rattlesnake", attached to a squadron in the Mediterranean. For most of the years 1827 to 1829 "Rattlesnake" was cruising off the coasts of Greece during the Greek War of Independence. Her log for the period, kept by Talavera Vernon Anson, survives in a collection at the New York Public Library.
Bridgeman took retirement from the navy on 1 October 1846, joining the Reserved List on half-pay. He was later (10 September 1857) promoted to Vice-Admiral on the Retired List. In retirement he lived at Knockin Hall, Shropshire. When he died in April 1860 aged 69, he was still "of Knockin Hall" and left an estate worth about £16,000.
Marriage and descendants.
On 2 January 1819, Bridgeman married Eliza Caroline Chamberlain, a daughter of Sir Henry Chamberlain, 1st Baronet. They had eight children:
Notes.
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