and), became the first beneficiary, and next his son
Francis Leveson Gower (afterwards first earl of Ellesmere) and his issue.
In order that the trust should last as long as possible, an extraordinary
use was made of the legal rule that property may be [v.04 p.0558] settled
for the duration of lives in being and twenty-one years after, by choosing
a great number of persons connected with the duke and their living issue
and adding to them the peers who had taken their seats in the House of
Lords on or before the duke's decease. Though the last of the peers died in
1857, one of the commoners survived till the 19th of October 1883, and
consequently the trust did not expire till the 19th of October 1903, when
the whole property passed under the undivided control of the earl of
Ellesmere. The canals, however, had in 1872 been transferred to the
Bridgewater Navigation Company, by whom they were sold in 1887 to the
Manchester Ship Canal Company.

BRIDGEWATER, FRANCIS HENRY EGERTON, 8TH EARL OF (1756-1829), was educated
at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, and became fellow of All Souls in 1780,
and F.R.S. in 1781. He held the rectories of Middle and Whitchurch in
Shropshire, but the duties were performed by a proxy. He succeeded his
brother (see above) in the earldom in 1823, and spent the latter part of
his life in Paris. He was a fair scholar, and a zealous naturalist and
antiquarian. When he died in February 1829 the earldom became extinct. He
bequeathed to the British Museum the valuable Egerton MSS. dealing with the
literature of France and Italy, and also L12,000. He also left L8000 at the
disposal of the president of the Royal Society, to be paid to the author or
authors who might be selected to write and publish 1000 copies of a
treatise "On the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God, as manifested in the
Creation." Mr Davies Gilbert, who then filled the office, selected eight
persons, each to undertake a branch of this subject, and each to receive
L1000 as his reward, together with any benefit that might accrue from the
sale of his work, according to the will of the testator.

The Bridgewater treatises were published as follows:--1. _The Adaptation of
External Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Condition of Man_, by Thomas
Chalmers, D.D. 2. _The Adaptation of External Nature to the Physical
Condition of Man_, by John Kidd, M.D. 3. _Astronomy and General Physics
considered with reference to Natural Theology_, by William Whew