Major-General Sir William Throsby Bridges,
KCB, CMG (
18 February 1861 –
18 May 1915) served with
Australian forces during
World War I, and was the first Australian to reach
general officer rank. He was also the first Australian general to be killed during the war, at
Gallipoli on
18 May 1915.
Born in
Greenock, Scotland, he was educated at Ryde on the
Isle of Wight, at the
Royal Naval School at
New Cross, London and at Trinity College,
Port Hope, Ontario, Canada. He studied at the
Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston,
Ontario, Canada but left before graduating. In
1879 he joined his family who had settled in his mother's home town of Moss Vale,
New South Wales.
He volunteered for service in the British Army in the
Second Boer War of
1899–1902, from where he contracted
typhoid. After being evacuated to England, he returned to Australia from where rapid promotions followed.
In
1910 Bridges assumed the post of the first commandant of the
Royal Military College at
Duntroon. He chose the site of the old
Campbell homestead. In line with the recommendations of
Lord Kitchener, Bridges largely modelled Duntroon on the
United States Military Academy at West Point.
In May
1914, Bridges was appointed Inspector General, the Army's top post. He was in
Queensland when the war crisis began, and arrived in
Melbourne on
5 August 1914. Bridges met with cabinet and was charged with the creation of an expeditionary force for overseas service of 20,000 men. He chose much of his staff from available graduates from the Duntroon college.
Bridges and his command sailed from
Albany Western Australia, on
26 October 1914. En route, the destination was changed from England to
Egypt and Bridges arrived there on
30 November 1914.
As commander of the 1st Australian Division, Bridges
landed at Anzac Cove, Gallipoli at around 7:30am on
25 April 1915.
While touring the lines on
15 May 1915, Bridges was shot through the
femoral artery by a
Turkish sniper. Dragged to safety he was evacuated to the hospital ship
Gascon. Infection set in but amputation was deemed impossible since he had lost so much blood.
Made aware of Bridges' imminent death,
King George V knighted him on
17 May, the first Australian General to receive a knighthood. He died the following day on board the hospital ship. His body was returned to
Melbourne where he received a state funeral. He was buried on
3 September 1915 at
Duntroon on the slopes of
Mount Pleasant. The grave was designed by
Walter Burley Griffin, the designer of Canberra. It is the only permanent structure designed by Griffin ever built in Canberra.
Bridges is one of only two Australian World War I soldiers killed in action or died of wounds who was buried in Australia. The other is
The Unknown Soldier, disinterred from a French grave and buried at the
Australian War Memorial in 1991.
He was survived by "Sandy" the only Australian horse to return from World War I (due to quarantine restrictions). It is not clear when Bridges met Sandy but after his death Sandy was cared for by a number of Army vets until by order of the Minister of Defence Sandy was returned to Australia where he lived at the Remount Depot at Maribyrnong. As old age wearied him he was euthanased and stuffed. His head was on display until the 1980s at the Australian War Memorial, while his hooves were mounted and used as paperweights and inkwells at Duntroon House.
On 10 October 1885 Bridges married Edith Lilian Francis (1862-1926), daughter of Alfred John Dawson Francis and Margaret Agnes Anne Francis (formerly Wilson, born Green) at St John's Church,
Darlinghurst, New South Wales. They had seven children, three of whom died young.
A special training section within the Australian Army Recruit Training Centre at Kapooka, "Bridges Company", is named in his honour.
