Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 1542 Private (Pte) Ronald Champ Blom, 8th Light Horse Regiment, of Auburn, Vic. A labourer prior to enlistment, Pte Blom embarked with the 12th Reinforcements from Melbourne on HMAT Ascanius on 10th November 1915. Later transferring to the 22nd Battalion he was killed in action in Belgium on 4th October 1917, aged 20, and is commemorated on the Menin Gate. This is one of a series of photographs taken by the Darge Photographic Company which had the concession 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.