Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 1627 Private (Pte) William James Day. A labourer from Ballarat East, Victoria had previously survived the North Lyell mining disaster in 1912 and embarked along with his brother, 542 Pte Spencer Frederick Day, with B Company, 38th Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Runic on 20 June 1916. On 1 June 1917, aged 29, he was killed in action in Belgium and was buried in the Strand Military Cemetery, Ploegsteert, Belgium. Pte Spencer Day was killed in action on 4 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. See also P08132.001.