Sir Orlando Bridgeman, 2nd Baronet

Sir Orlando Bridgeman, 2nd Baronet (27 April 1678 – 5 December 1746) was a British landowner and Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1707 and 1738.

[1][2] He was educated at Rugby School in Warwickshire and matriculated at Trinity College, Oxford on 10 November 1694, aged 15.

[3] He succeeded his father to the baronetcy on the latter's death in 1701[1] He inherited the family estate at Bowood Park, Wiltshire, where a lease from the crown was renewed in 1702.

It was a financially advantageous match as Bridgeman acquired Wanstead, one of Dashwood's manors in Essex, as part of the marriage settlement.

He was re-elected MP for Coventry at the 1708 British general election and saw off a petition by his opponents accusing him of bribery.

[8] Bridgeman's principal creditor Richard Long acquired ownership of the estate after a Chancery Decree in his favour in 1739.

[5] The diary of John Perceval, 1st Earl of Egmont says the following:[9] Sir Orlando Bridgeman who, instead of going to his government of Barbados conferred on his last winter, made his escape (as he hoped) from the world, to avoid his creditors, by pretending to make himself away, and accordingly gave it out that he had drowned himself, was ferreted out of his hole by the reward advertised for whoever should discover him, and seized in an inn at Slough, where he had ever since concealed himself.