Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 22479 Gunner (Gnr) Alfred Ernest Smith, 23rd Howitzer Brigade. A farmer from Skipton, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Smith embarked with the Brigade Ammunition Column from Melbourne on HMAT Medic o 20 May 1916. Later transferring to the 12th Field Artillery Brigade (FAB) and then to the 11th FAB, he was wounded in action on two separate occasions. On 29 October 1917, he succumbed to his wounds and was buried in the Menin Road South Military Cemetery, 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 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.