Folding Ensign camera : Lieutenant D R Waddell, 7 Light Horse Regiment, AIF

The '2 1/2 Folding Ensign' camera. Designed to be used with a two and a half inch film spool. The camera is rectangular shaped with rounded ends and a wooden and steel body covered in black textured leatherette. There is a broken leather carry strap connected to one end. The manufacturers details are attached to the steel back plate which is detachable from the camera body. The back plate has a 12mm diameter amber coloured veiwing window included. The lens housing is mounted to a black steel plate which is connected to a paper and fabric, collapsable black bellows. The bellows and lens can be set at five different focal lengths; 3 feet, 5 feet, 10 feet, 25 feet and infinity. The bellows and lens folds away flat when not in use. There is a swivelling glass prismatic view finder that allows photographs to be taken in portrait or landscape format. The leatherette covering is lifting in some places exposing the wood frame beneath. There are two missing fittings and the steel back plate has become detatched from the camera body.

This camera is associated with the service of Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Ronald Waddell, 7th Light Horse Regiment, who enlisted on 28 August 1915 and returned to Australia on 29 April 1919. The only reference available to Waddell so far discovered is in "Nat Barton's letters home 1914-1918" (editor Robin Barclay), wherein Barton states in a letter dated from Cairo, 31 August 1916 that "Colonel Fuller much to our surprise is practically all right, and scarcely lame. Windeyer and Waddell are being sent to Australia, and Ryan has gone to England." (p 124). The reference is associated with the battle for Romani. Waddell's daughter confirms that he had been wounded under the tongue and recovered in Australia, but returned to active duty with the 7th Light Horse as soon as he could; certainly in time for the Beersheeba charge on 31 October 1917, during which he used this camera to photograph the Australian cavalry massing prior to their charge. Post war, Waddell transferred to the 16th Light Horse Regiment (the Hunter River Lancers), becoming its Commanding Officer during the 1930s.