Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 3887 Private (Pte) Ernest King. A glassblower from West Brunswick, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte King embarked with the 12th Reinforcements, 5th Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Ceramic on 23 November 1915. He was later admitted to hospital suffering from a sprained ankle and following his recovery he was evacuated to England suffering from dysentery. After recovering he re-joined his battalion and, on 25 August 1918, he was killed in action. Having no known grave he is commemorated on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial. 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.