Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 2875 Private (Pte) Alfred John Brett 31st Battalion. A native of Lower Dicker, Sussex, England, and a labourer prior to enlistment in Sydney on 6 December 1915, he embarked from Sydney aboard HMAT Anchises on 14 March 1916 for Egypt. The battalion relocated to the Western Front, France, in June 1916. Pte Brett was admitted to 2nd General Hospital, Le Havre, on 16 December 1916 and died five days later from severe bronchitis. He was aged 29 years. 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.