Henry Bridgeman, 2nd Baron and 1st Earl of Bradford, was born on 19 March 1762, the son of Sir Henry Bridgeman, 1st Baron Bradford, and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. John Simpson of Stoke Hall, Derby. On 29 May 1788 he married the Hon. Lucy Elizabeth Byng, daughter and co-heir of 4th Lord Torrington. They had several children, the eldest of whom George Augustus succeeded as 2nd Earl on the death of his father on 7 September 1815.

There is another version of this portrait with the sitter wearing peer's robes at Weston