Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 4470 Private (Pte) Donald McQueen, 24th Battalion. A seaman from Brunswick, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte McQueen embarked with the 11th Reinforcements from Melbourne on RMS Malwa on 21 March 1916. Later transferring to the 6th Light Trench Mortar Battery he was one of a group who were awarded the Military Medal for “the gallantry and determination which they continued to serve their mortars throughout the day and night”. He was later promoted to Corporal and was wounded in action at Passchendaele Ridge. On 16 November 1917, aged 34, he succumbed to his wounds and was buried in the Mont Huon Military Cemetery, Le Treport, France. 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.