Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Outdoor portrait of Lieutenant (Lt) Harold Strachan Kitson, Australian Flying Corps from Melbourne, Victoria. He was a 22 year old engineering student when he enlisted on 5 October 1916 and embarked for overseas as a Second Lieutenant with C Flight, No 2 Squadron from Melbourne on 25 October 1916 aboard HMAT Ulysses. After serving with the 68th and the 63rd Squadrons, Royal Flying Corps, Lt Kitson was killed on 15 June 1917 in an aeroplane accident three miles north east of South Carlton, near Lincoln, England and is buried in the Newport Cemetery, Lincoln. 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 1930's, 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.