Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of left to right; 2303 Private (Pte) Thomas Henry Dickinson, 38th Battalion, 2645 Pte Frederick Cheeswright, 60th Battalion and 2330 Pte Henry Harnell, 38th Battalion. Pte Dickinson, a farmer from Heathcote, Victoria prior to enlistment, embarked with the 4th Reinforcements from Melbourne on HMAT Port Lincoln on 20 October 1916. Whilst serving on the Western Front, he was wounded in action on two separate occasions and returned to Australia on 12 May 1919. Pte Cheeswright, a wood carter from Tooborac, Victoria prior to enlistment, embarked with the 6th Reinforcements from Melbourne on HMAT Nestor on 2 October 1916. Later allotted the regimental number 2645A, he was killed in action at Polygon Wood, aged 29, and is commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial, Ypres, Belgium. Pte Harnell, a labourer from Tooborac, Victoria prior to enlistment embarked with the 4th Reinforcements from Melbourne aboard HMAT Port Lincoln on 20 October 1916. He was killed in action on 7 June 1917 at Messines and his name is engraved on the Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres, Belgium with others who have no known grave. 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.