Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Formal portrait of 1 Trooper (Tpr) George White Brown, 1st Machine Gun squadron, 1st Anzac Mounted Division, and 634 Private (Pte) Ernest Brain, 6th Machine Gun Company. Tpr Brown, a storekeeper from Newcastle, New South Wales, prior to enlistment, embarked from Melbourne on 10 May 1917 aboard HMAT Boorara for the Suez. He served in Egypt and returned to Australia in June 1919. Pte Brain, a labourer from Linga, Victoria, prior to enlistment, embarked from Melbourne on 10 May 1917 aboard HMAT Clan McGillivray for Plymouth, England. He joined his unit on the Western Front, France in February 1918. Pte Brain was killed in action near Villers-Bretonneux on 8 August 1918. He was aged 33 years. 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.