Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Bridges, William Throsby
BRIDGES, Sir WILLIAM THROSBY (1861-1915), general, was born 18 February 1861, at Greenock, where his father, Captain William Wilson Somerset Bridges, R.N., was then stationed. Of an Essex family, Captain Bridges married a daughter of Charles Throsby, of New South Wales. Their son William was educated at a school in Ryde, Isle of Wight, at the Royal Naval School, Greenwich, at Trinity College School, Port Hope, Canada (his father having retired to that Dominion), and at the Canadian Military College, Kingston. While he was at the Military College his parents removed to New South Wales, where he ultimately joined them, obtaining a civil appointment in the roads and bridges department of that state. In 1885 he obtained a lieutenancy in the New South Wales Permanent Artillery and was posted in charge of the Middle Head forts at Sydney. After a rather purposeless period, a school of gunnery was established at Middle Head, and from this point onwards Bridges’s remarkable energy found adequate outlet. He was made a captain in 1890, and served as a major in the Boer War: he was present at the relief of Kimberley (15 February 1900), and was engaged at Paardeberg (27 February), and in several other actions. On his return to Australia he joined the head-quarters staff and served successively as assistant quartermaster-general (1902), chief of intelligence (1905), chief of the general staff and Australian representative on the Imperial General Staff in London (1909), commandant, Royal Military College, Duntroon (1910), and inspector-general of the Commonwealth military forces (1914). He was promoted lieutenant-colonel in 1902, colonel in 1906, and brigadier-general in 1910, and awarded the C.M.G. in 1907. With characteristic thoroughness he visited military schools in America, Belgium, Great Britain, Canada, France, and Germany before commencing his duties at the college at Duntroon. At the outbreak of the European War (1914) he was selected to command the first Australian contingent, with the rank of major-general, and he was in command of the first Australian division on the Gallipoli Peninsula, where he was mortally wounded by a sniper 15 May 1915. He died at sea, five days later, on board a hospital ship. His body was taken back to Australia and interred in the grounds of the Military College at Duntroon.
In the foundation of the Royal Military College, Duntroon, Bridges played a very prominent part, and it is in this connexion that his name will chiefly be remembered, for, under his able leadership, Duntroon ranked as one of the finest military colleges in the world. He was gazetted K.C.B. 17 May 1915, the notice appearing four days after his death. He was tall, thin, and loose-limbed, with a stoop at the shoulders which proclaimed him a student; a slow but deep thinker; so shy that he appeared to be dour and brusque in manner, a trait productive of a like nervousness in his subordinates; somewhat intolerant of opposition; a man of singularly few words; never one to seek for favours; always quietly efficient. He married in 1885 Edith Lilian, daughter of Alfred Dawson Francis, of Moruya, New South Wales. There were four children of the marriage.
[The Times, 24 May 1915; Commonwealth of Australia Official Records; Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918, vol. i, 1923.]