Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 3178 Private (Pte) Charles Merton. A gardener from Toorak, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Merton embarked with the 7th Reinforcements, 21st Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Wiltshire on 18 November 1915. He later transferred to the 59th Battalion and was posted as missing in action. A subsequent court of enquiry determined that he had been killed in action on 19 July 1916, aged 45. Having no known grave he is commemorated on the VC Corner Australian Cemetery and Memorial, Fromelles, 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.