Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 3961 Private (Pte) Victor John Tisdale Thompson. A coach painter from Mansfield, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Thompson embarked with the 12th Reinforcements, 6th Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Ceramic on 23 November 1915. Later transferring to the Australian Electrical and Mechanical Mining and Boring Company he was re-mustered as a Sapper. On 18 December 1917, aged 20, he was killed in action and buried in the Pont-du-Hem Military Cemetery, La Gorgue, France. 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.