Branch of Service

Army

Conflict

World War I (1914-1918)

Date of Enlistment

11/08/1914

Place of Enlistment

Melbourne, Victoria

Gender

Male

Date of Birth

18/02/1861

Place of Birth

Greenock, Scotland

Address (at enlistment)

Toorak, Victoria (previously the Royal Military College, Duntroon ACT)

Occupation

Soldier

Next of Kin

Lady Edith Bridges (wife), Toorak, Victoria

Burial Place

Royal Military College, Duntroon ACT

Final Rank

Major General

Final Unit

1 Division AIF

Died of wounds at sea on 18 May 1915, aged 54 years

AWM Roll of Honour Memorial Panel 2, Canberra ACT
Large stone tablet on outside of northern wall of St. John's Church, Reid ACT

Knight Commander of the Bath (Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, 11 September 1915)
Mentioned in Despatches Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, 28 October 1915)

Bridges was the son of a naval officer and was descended, on his mother's side, from explorer Charles Throsby, the first European to find the Murrumbidgee River (in 1821 near Canberra). Bridges was educated in England and Canada and arrived in Australia in 1879. He became an assistant inspector of roads in New South Wales and was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the colony's artillery in August 1885. Bridges married Edith Francis in Sydney shortly afterwards. Bridges served in the Boer War and then as chief of intelligence on the first military board of administration in 1905 with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He was appointed as the first chief of the Australian general staff in January 1909. In January 1910 he was asked to found Australia's military training college and he chose Duntroon as the site.

The Royal Military College, Duntroon opened on 27 June 1911 with Bridges, now a Brigadier General, its first commandant. He remained commandant until May 1914 when he was appointed as Inspector General of the army. When the war began Bridges was promoted to Major General and tasked with raising and training the contingent of volunteers which he named the Australian Imperial Force.

Bridges commanded the 1st Division of the AIF at the landing at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. He regularly inspected the lines during the first few weeks until wounded in the leg by a sniper in Monash Valley on 15 May. The bullet severed both the artery and vein in his right thigh. He died aboard the hospital ship Gascon at 5.45am on 18 May 1915 having been knighted the day before. Bridges was initially buried in the Chatby Military Cemetery in Alexandria, Egypt but it was decided to return his remains to Australia for burial.

After a state funeral in Melbourne, Bridges body was returned to Canberra where a service for him was held at St. John's. The RMC cadets were part of the funeral procession which led his body to the burial site on the slopes of Mount Pleasant above Duntroon. The grave, designed by Walter Burley Griffin, was the regular site for Anzac Day ceremonies until the opening of the Australian War Memorial. Sir William Throsby Bridges is the only known soldier killed in World War 1 to have his body returned to Australia for burial.

Charles Bean, 'Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-18' (Vol. I, II)
Chrales Bean, 'Two Men I Knew', 1957
C.D. Coulthard-Clark, 'Duntroon: The Royal Military College of Australia 1911-1986'
Australian Dictionary of Biography, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/bridges-sir-william-throsby-5355/text9055, accessed online 16 July 2014 (entry by Chris Clark)
Colonel J.E. Lee, 'Duntroon: The Royal Military College of Australia 1911-1946', 1952
The Duntroon Society, 'The Funeral', Newsletter 2/1990
AWM Roll of Honour Database
NAA RecordSearch - Series B2455 (First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914-1920)
Patricia Clarke, 'War Widows of the ACT', https://www.womenaustralia.info/exhib/widows/bridges.html
Queanbeyan Observer - 6 September 1915