Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 2604 Private (Pte) Robert Maurice Stewart Hammerberg, 14th Battalion, a 31 year old sub-marine lineman for the Post Office, from Cheltenham, Victoria when he enlisted in the AIF. He embarked for overseas with the 8th Reinforcements from Melbourne on 15 September 1915 aboard SS Makarini. After serving at Gallipoli, Pte Hammerberg went on to serve on the Western Front where he was killed in action at Bullecourt, France on 11 April 1917. His name in on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial in France with others who have no known grave. 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 1930's 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 a unit name, for each negative.