Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 6226 Private (Pte) William Thomas Blackwood, 6th Battalion. A labourer from Hotspur via Condah, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Blackwood embarked along with his brother 6227 Pte John James Blackwood with the 20th Reinforcements from Melbourne on HMAT Euripides on 11th September 1916. On 4 October 1917 he was killed in action in Belgium, aged 24, and was buried in Oosttaverne Wood Cemetery, Flanders, Belgium. Pte John Blackwood returned to Australia on 1 August 1919. 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 DA16027.