[2] Bridgeman moved to Wigan, Lancashire, when his older brother John, later Bishop of Chester, became Rector of the parish in 1616.
He was a law student, listed as a member of Gray's Inn in 1624, and became a Justice of the Peace (JP) for the county of Lancaster in 1628, although he was a poor attender at quarter sessions and there was an attempt to remove him from the bench in 1638 after a serious brawl.
In 1628 he was elected MP for Wigan again and sat until 1629 when King Charles decided to rule without parliament for eleven years.
His married firstly, on 30 June 1627, Elenor, daughter of Sir Richard Brooke of Little Sankey, Cheshire, but the marriage was childless and she died in 1638.
[1] He left his widow, who remarried and lived until 1685, and his only daughter who married Sir John Edgeworth.