Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 3771 Acting Sergeant (A/Sgt) Thomas William Gaston with two unidentified women and a small child. A bootmaker from Preston, Victoria prior to enlistment, A/Sgt Gaston embarked with the 12th Reinforcements, 8th Battalion from Adelaide on HMAT Ceramic on 23 November 1915. He later transferred to the 6th Battalion where he was promoted to Warrant Officer Class 1 where he was appointed as Regimental Sergeant Major and awarded the Meritorious Service Medal. He was later promoted to Second Lieutenant and on 23 August 1918 he was killed in action and buried in the Heath Cemetery, Picardie, 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.