John Egerton, 3rd Earl of Bridgewater


John Egerton, 3rd Earl of Bridgewater KB PC was a British nobleman from the Egerton family.
He was the eldest son of John Egerton, 2nd Earl of Bridgewater and his wife Elizabeth Cavendish. His maternal grandparents were William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle and his first wife Elizabeth Basset.
On 17 November 1664, he married Lady Elizabeth Cranfield, daughter of James Cranfield, 2nd Earl of Middlesex. She gave birth to a son, but died in childbirth. He married his second wife on 2 April 1673, Lady Jane Paulet, eldest daughter of Charles Paulet, 1st Duke of Bolton.
Egerton served as a Member of Parliament for Buckinghamshire as a Whig for Buckinghamshire from 1685 to 1686. He also served as Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire following his father's death in 1686 but was dismissed after his first period in office by King James II for refusing to produce a list of Roman Catholics to serve as officers of the militia. He was later reinstated to the position when William III came to the throne and James II was forced into exile.
He served as First Lord of Trade in the Convention Parliament, 1690–1691. He was promoted to the cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty by the Whigs in 1699. He served in this position until March 1700/1.
He was chosen as a Speaker for the House of Lords in 1697 and then again for 1701.

Family

He was first married to Elizabeth Cranfield, a daughter of James Cranfield, 2nd Earl of Middlesex and Anne Bourchier. They had only one known child who survived birth:
On 2 April 1673, Bridgewater married his second wife Jane Paulet. She was a daughter of Charles Paulet, 1st Duke of Bolton and his second wife Mary Scrope. Mary was the eldest illegitimate daughter of Emanuel Scrope, 1st Earl of Sunderland, and his mistress Martha Jones; she became her father's co-heiress when a brother died childless. They had nine children: