Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 2997 Private (Pte) John Patrick McNamara, 31st Battalion. A stockman and drover from Condoblin, NSW, Pte McNamara embarked with the 5th Reinforcements from Melbourne on HMAT Anchises on 14 March 1916. Later transferring to the 5th Pioneer Battalion, he was killed in action, aged 36 and, having no known grave, is commemorated on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial. 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.