Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait 5700 Private (Pte) William David West, 22nd Battalion. A labourer from Newmarket, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte West trained as a signaller and embarked with the 15th Reinforcements from Melbourne on HMAT Shropshire on 25 September 1916. Later wounded in action he was evacuated to England, he was evacuated to England. Following his recovery he rejoined his unit and was wounded in action for the second time. On 8 October 1917 he succumbed to his wounds and was buried in the Lijssenhoek Military Cemetery, Flanders, Belgium. 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.