Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of Indigenous serviceman 3347 Private (Pte) Walter Lane Franklin, 29th Battalion. A labourer from Healesville, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Franklin embarked with the 7th Reinforcements from Melbourne on HMAT Berrima on 5 July 1916. Later promoted to Lance Corporal, he transferred to the 32nd Battalion and returned to Australia on 8 May 1919. 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.