Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 4383 Private (Pte) Robert Gordon Melville Mitchell. Born in Calcutta, India, Pte Mitchell had qualified as a barrister before becoming an orchardist from West Tamar, Tasmania. He embarked with the rank of Acting Lance Corporal with the 13th Reinforcements, 15th Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Demosthenes on 29 December 1915. Later wounded in action he was evacuated to the 10th Casualty Clearing Station where on 10 October 1916, aged 41, he succumbed to his wounds and was buried in the Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery, Flanders, Belgium. 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.