William Bridges (general)
| Sir William Throsby Bridges | |
|---|---|
William Bridges, pictured here in 1914.
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| Born | 18 February 1861 Greenock, Scotland |
| Died | 18 May 1915 (aged 54) At sea (HMHS Gascon) |
| Allegiance | Australia |
| Service/branch | Australian Army |
| Years of service | 1885–1915 |
| Rank | Major General |
| Commands held |
Chief of the General Staff (1909) Royal Military College, Duntroon (1910–14) 1st Division (1914–15) |
| Battles/wars | |
| Awards |
Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George Mentioned in dispatches |
Second Boer War
First World War
Major General Sir William Throsby Bridges KCB, CMG (18 February 1861 – 18 May 1915) was a senior Australian Army officer who was instrumental in establishing the Royal Military College, Duntroon and who served as the first Australian Chief of the General Staff. During the First World War he commanded the 1st Australian Division at Gallipoli, where he died of wounds on 18 May 1915, becoming the first Australian general officer to be killed during the war. He was the first Australian—and the first graduate of Kingston—to reach the rank of major general, the first to command a division, and the first to receive a knighthood. He is one of only two Australians killed in action in the Great War to be interred in Australia.
Born 18 February 1861 in Greenock, Scotland, the son of William Wilson Somerset Bridges, a Royal Navy captain, and his Australian wife, Mary Hill Throsby. He was educated at Ryde on the Isle of Wight, before attending the Royal Naval School at New Cross, London, in 1871. He remained there until mid-1872 when his family moved to Canada, after his father was badly injured in an accident and forced to retire from the navy. For the next three years, Bridges was a boarder at the Trinity College School, at Port Hope, Ontario. On 10 April 1877, at the age of 16, he entered the newly established Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, as part of the college's second intake, and was assigned the student number of 25.
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