Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Outdoor portrait of Lieutenant (Lt) Reginald Morris Seymour Brett, 13th Light Horse Regiment. An accountant from Healesville, Victoria, prior to enlistment as a Private (Pte) on 14 July 1915, he underwent training at the Light Horse, Seymour, before embarking from Melbourne aboard HMAT Ceramic on 23 November 1915 for Egypt. The regiment relocated to the Western Front, France in July 1916 and became part of the 1st Anzac Mounted Troops which served in the France and Belgium areas until the end of the war. Pte Brett was appointed to the rank of Lance Corporal on 15 November 1916 and promoted to Squadron Quartermaster Sergeant on 14 March 1917. He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant on 10 November 1917 and promoted to Lieutenant on 1 April 1918. At the cessation of hostilities Lt Brett spent some months at various bases in England with Education Services before returning to Australia on 9 January 1920 where his commission in the AIF was terminated on 9 March 1920. 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.