Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Group portrait including 1621 Private (Pte) Arthur Norman Black (right), 1614 Pte Charles Alexander Allen and a soldier identified as Heywood (positions unknown). Pte Black, a farmer from Branxholme, Victoria prior to enlistment and Pte Allen, a farmer from Heywood, Victoria prior to enlistment, both embarked with the 2nd Reinforcements, 60th Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Port Lincoln on 4 May 1916. Pte Black later transferred to the 58th Battalion and was wounded in action and evacuated to England. Following his recovery he joined the 2nd Pioneer Battalion and returned to Australia on 19 February 1919. Pte Allen also transferred to the 58th Battalion and, on 25 September 1917, aged 29, he was killed in action in Belgium. Having no known grave, he is commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial, Ypres, Belgium. His brother, 236 Sergeant William Wallace Bentley Allen, 9th Battalion was killed during the Gallipoli landing on 25 April 1915. 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.