Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 7464 Private (Pte) Samuel Robert Christie. A farmer from Newham, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Christie embarked as part of the Sportsmen’s 1000 with the 25th Reinforcements, 8th Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Nestor on 21 November 1917. On 11 August 1918, aged 22, he was killed in action and was buried in the Rosieres Communal Cemetery Extension, France. This is one of a series of photographs taken by the Darge Photographic Company which had a 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.