Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 3382 private (Pte) George Frederick Drayton. A labourer from Footscray, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Drayton embarked with the 9th Reinforcements, 60th Battalion from Sydney on HMAT Port Melbourne on 16 July 1917. On 2 September 1918 he was killed in action and was buried in the Peronne Communal Cemetery Extension, France. It was subsequently revealed that he had lied about his age and was aged 17 at the time of his death. His brother, 6737 Pte Leslie Athol Drayton, died of wounds on 2 October 1917. 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.