Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 3350 Private (Pte) David Charles Armstrong. An iron worker from Richmond, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Armstrong embarked with the 9th Reinforcements, 58th Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Port Melbourne on 16 July 1917. On 8 March 1918, aged 19, he was killed in action in Belgium and was buried in the Messines Ridge British Cemetery, Flanders, Belgium. His brother 3681 Pte John Hubert Armstrong was also killed in action (see H05936). A third brother, 2630 Pte James Stanley Armstrong also served in the AIF. 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. See also H05935.