Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 4266 Private (Pte) Leslie Williams. A butcher from Geelong, Victoria, Pte Williams enlisted on 19 July 1915 but due to the fact that his attestation papers had been lost, his embarkation was delayed. He eventually embarked with the 10th Reinforcements, 24th Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Wiltshire on 7 March 1916. Later wounded in the right foot he was invalided to England. Following his recovery he re-joined his battalion and was gassed and again invalided to England. Once again re-joining his battalion he was wounded in the left thigh at Mont St Quentin. Evacuated to England for the third time he was still convalescing when the Armistice was declared and returned to Australia on 10 May 1919. Subsequently admitted to the No 11 Army General Hospital, Caulfield, he passed away on 1 December 1919 due to complications to his wound and pneumonia and was buried in the Geelong Eastern Cemetery, Victoria. This is one of a series of photographs taken by the Darge Photographic Company which had a permit 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.