Bridgeman, Orlando (1609–1674), lawyer, politician, and Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge

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Bridgeman, Orlando (1609–1674), lawyer, politician, and Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge

• Orlando Bridgman

30 January 1606 - 25 June 1674

Matriculated in 1619 from Magdalene College probably aged about 13. His father was John Bridgman (also Magdalene) who was chaplain to James I and became Bishop of Chester in 1619.

BA in 1623 and elected Fellow in 1624. His father wouldn't let him accept the Fellowship on the grounds that they should be reserved for men of more modest means.
MP for Wigan, 1640; University Counsel, 1642; Kt, 1643, Baronet, 1660.

A lawyer who specialised in conveyancing (a critical concern in the aftermath of the Civil War) and was a prominent Royalist. He presided in the trial of the regicides. Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, 1660; Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, 1667-1672 (in effect Lord Chancellor). In Pepys’s view ‘a mighty able man’ (Diary vol 8, p 421), and probably the College’s most eminent lawyer. Patron of the poet Traherne.

Bridgeman's reports, spanning his time as chief justice of the common pleas, are in the British Library (BL, Hargrave MSS 55–58).
Personal papers - there are notebooks and letters relating to Bridgeman family and public affairs in the Staffordshire Record Office, and some miscellaneous correspondence at Longleat.

Arms in Hall glass, W3.

In the College Magazine
Article: 'Sir Orlando Bridgman: the College's seventeenth century legal star'. by N. G. Jones, College Magazine vol. 40 (1995-96) pp 31-36

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography