Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 3136 Private (Pte) James Rigby and 3137 Pte James Ryan, both 7th Battalion. Originally from Lancashire, England, Pte Rigby was a bottle blower from Melbourne, Victoria prior to enlistment. Pte Ryan, originally from Gisborne, New Zealand, was a labourer from West Melbourne prior to enlistment. Both men embarked with the10th Reinforcements from Melbourne on RMS Osterley on 29 September 1915. Pte Rigby later transferred to the 58th Battalion and was wounded in action. Subsequently transferring to the 59th Battalion, he was promoted to Corporal and remained in England after the Armistice and was demobilised on 8 September 1919. Pte Ryan transferred to the 58th Battalion the 59th Battalion and finally to the 5th Pioneer Battalion. He was killed in action on 25 December 1916 and, having no known grave, is commemorated on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial. 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.