Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of R Johnson, possibly 715 Private (Pte) Ralph Johnson, 31st Battalion. A clerk from Middle Brighton, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Johnson embarked with C Company from Melbourne on HMAT Wandilla on 9 November 1915. Later promoted to Lance Corporal he was killed in action at Fromelles, aged 19, and was buried in the Pont-du-Hem Military Cemetery France. 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.