Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of Indigenous serviceman 5811 Sapper (Spr) Alfred Punton. A wheeler from Wallsend, NSW prior to enlistment, Spr Punton had previously been medically rejected due to poor eyesight. He embarked with the Tunnelling Company November Reinforcements from Melbourne on HMAT Ulysses on 25 October 1916. Later joining the 3rd Tunnelling Company his problems with his vision worsened and he returned to Australia on 25 August 1917 and was medically discharged. 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.