On a ridgeline descending to the east of Mount Pleasant in Canberra, Australia, can be found a solitary tomb topped with slab of polished stone. 60,000 Australians were killed in the Great War yet this grave contains the remains of the only soldier repatriated, until the remains of an Unknown Soldier were interred in the Australian War Memorial in 1993. Very few Australians today would know of the man within this tomb, and even the cadets of the Royal Military College Duntroon and the Australian Defence Force Academy, which lie to either side of that ridge, probably know little more than his name and where he died. It is the last resting place of Major-General William Bridges, Duntroon's first commandant.

'A Heritage of Spirit - A Biography of Major-General Sir William Throsby Bridges KCB CMG' was written in 1979, and the author is a Duntroon Graduate. Whilst some reverence is expressed in the closing paragraphs of the book, the volume is by no means a hagiography, and does its best to reveal the personality of a complex and private man who was a seminal player in the establishment of the Australian Army. Born in Scotland in 1861 the book follows Bridges life across the globe, first to Canada, then Australia, where he worked in the backblocks of New South Wales as a Roads Inspector. In 1885, the confluence of the Fall of Khartoum coupled with a 'Russian Invasion Scare' caused a burst of militaristic fervour in the Colony which saw Bridges commissioned into the local artillery. An administrator, trainer and autodidact, he immersed himself in all things military, becoming an indispensable expert who helped shape the army of the new Commonwealth after 1901. Appointed first commandant of the Royal Military College Duntroon in 1911, on the outbreak of war he oversaw the establishment of the Australian Imperial Force and led the First Division into battle at Gallipoli, where he was mortally wounded by a Turkish sniper in 1915. Through all this the author does his best to explore a man who was opaque to many. A man intensely disliked by some, in total contrast being held in the highest regard by others.

Sadly, Bridges biography appears to have been as forgotten as the man himself. This copy was purchased secondhand by the Reviewer, for a pittance in mint condition, over 40 years after publication, from Grant's Bookshop Sandringham.