Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of L L McDonald, believed to be 2710 Private (Pte) Lachlan Leigh McDonald, 24th Battalion from Inverleigh, Victoria. A 19 year old butcher prior to enlisting on 30 July 1915, he embarked for overseas with the 6th Reinforcements from Melbourne on 27 October 1915 aboard HMAT Ulysses (A38). After arriving in Egypt, he transferred to the 7th Battalion and went with them to France in March 1916. He was wounded in action on 29 June 1916 and evacuated to England for medical treatment. On recovering, he returned to the 7th Battalion in France in May 1917 and then on 4 October 1917, he was killed in action at Zonnebeke, Belgium and is commemorated 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 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.