Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 1921 Private (Pte) William Edmund Fowler, 57th Battalion. A grocer from Waaia, Vic prior to enlistment, Pte Fowler embarked with the 3rd Reinforcements from Melbourne on HMAT Ajana on 8 July 1916. After serving in France, he returned to Australia on 10 June 1916. 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.