Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of Acting Corporal (A/Cpl) Aubrey Valetta Southwell. A school teacher from Heywood, NSW prior to enlistment, A/Cpl Southwell embarked with the 6th Reinforcements, 24th Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Ulysses on 27 October 1915. Later transferring to the 8th Battalion he was promoted to Lance Corporal, was awarded the Military Medal and was wounded in the right leg and evacuated to England. Subsequently re-joining his battalion he was gassed and again evacuated to England where he was promoted to Corporal. He returned to Australia on 18 December 1918. This is one of a series of photographs taken by the Darge Photographic Company which had a permit 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.