Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 3295 Private (Pte) Robert Joseph Whitehead, 22nd Battalion from Edenhope, Victoria. A 19 year old labourer prior to enlisting on 19 July 1915, he embarked for overseas with the 7th Reinforcements from Melbourne on 26 November 1915 aboard HMAT Commonwealth. After arriving in Egypt, he joined the 7th Battalion and deployed with them to France in March 1916. He was killed in action on 4 October 1917 at Westhoek Ridge, Belgium and is commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres, Belgium with others who have no known grave. His older brother, 566 Trooper John Alexander Patrick Whitehead, 13th Light Horse Regiment, died of wounds in France on 3 June 1918. This is one of a series of photographs taken by the Darge Photographic Company which had the concession to take photographs at the Broadmeadows and Seymour army camps during the First World War. In the 1930s, the Australian War Memorial purchased the original glass negatives from Algernon Darge, along with the photographers' notebooks. The notebooks contain brief details, usually a surname or unit name, for each negative.