Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 1939 Private (Pte) John Alexander Hood, 57th Battalion. A labourer from Brim, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Hood embarked along with his brother 1940 Pte Thomas Arthur Hood with the 3rd Reinforcements from Melbourne on HMAT Ajana on 8 July 1916. On 12 May 1917, aged 19, he was killed in action in France and, having no known grave, is commemorated on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial. Pte Thomas Hood returned to Australia on 10 January 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. See also DA15780 and DA15780.