Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 3448 Private (Pte) Robert Francis Perry, 7th Battalion. A driver from Richmond, Vic prior to enlistment, Pte Perry embarked with the 11th Reinforcements from Melbourne aboard HMAT Nestor on 11 October 1915. Later transferring to the 59th Battalion he was initially reported as wounded and missing in action, however a subsequent Board of Inquiry determined that he had been killed in action in France, on 19 July 1916. He is commemorated on the VC Corner Australian Cemetery Memorial, Fromelles, France. 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.