Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 1955 Private (Pte) Robert Cornelius Rogers, 58th Battalion. A farmer from Swan Hill, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Rogers embarked with the 3rd Reinforcements from Melbourne on HMAT Ajana on 8 July 1916. Later transferring to the 57th Battalion, he was reported as missing in action in Belgium. A later Court of Enquiry determined that he was killed in action on 25 July 1917, aged 29. Having no known grave, he is commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial, Ypres. 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.