Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 3087 Private (Pte) Rupert Laity, 6th Battalion from Merbein, via Mildura, Victoria. A 28 year old orchardist when he enlisted on 5 July 1915, he embarked for overseas with the 10th Reinforcements from Melbourne on 29 September 1915 aboard RMS Osterley. After being promoted to Lance Corporal (L Cpl) on 15 February 1917, he was awarded a Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) for conspicuous gallantry at Thilloy, France on 27/28 February 1917. L Cpl Laity was killed in action on 20 September 1917 at Zillebeke, Belgium and his name in inscribed on the Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres, Belgium 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.