Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Outdoor portrait of two soldiers from the 24th Battalion on guard at their camp. They embarked for overseas with the 10th Reinforcements from Melbourne on 7 March 1916 aboard HMAT Wilshire. On the left is 4138 Private (Pte) Phillip Edward Living, a 22 year old grocer from Maryborough, Victoria when he enlisted in the AIF on 19 October 1915. While serving in France, he was hospitalised with appendicitis on 20 June 1916 and evacuated to England for medical treatment. He died on 15 August 1916 and is buried in the Epsom Cemetery, Ashley Road, Epsom, UK. On the right is 4122 Pte John Fredrick Howard, a 39 year old labourer from Abbotsford, Victoria when he enlisted in the AIF on 28 December 1915. While serving in France, he was taken ill with myalgia on 21 October 1916 and evacuated to England and then returned to Australia where he was discharged on 29 June 1917 as medically unfit for further service. 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. The names are transcribed as they appear in the notebooks.