Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 3933 Private (Pte) Henry William Spence. A paint mixer from North Melbourne, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Spence embarked with the 12th Reinforcements, 8th Battalion from Adelaide on HMAT Ceramic on 23 November 1915. On 25 July 1916, aged 23, he was killed in action near Pozieres and, having no known grave, he is commemorated on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial, France. His brother 4297 Pte Frank Thomas Spence served overseas with the 7th Battalion. 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.