Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 2256 Private (Pte) William Goodrich Downie, 3rd Pioneer Battalion. A motor-man from Caulfield, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Downie embarked with the 3rd Reinforcements from Melbourne on HMAT Karroo on 18 September 1916. Later transferring to the 8th Field Artillery Brigade with the rank of Gunner, he was killed in action at Polygon Wood and buried nearby. Following the Armistice he remains could not be recovered and he his commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial, Ypres, 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 1930's, 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.