Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Portrait of a soldier, signed "Yours truly, Reg W Littlejohns" copied for the Commonwealth Meteorological Bureau Honour Roll 1914 - 1918. The wooden board was created in 1917 and includes the names and portraits of 18 staff members who served in the First World War. The soldier is 1955 Private (Pte) Reginald Woodley Littlejohns, a clerk from Northcote, Victoria, prior to enlistment. Pte Littlejohns embarked from Melbourne with the 3rd Reinforcements, 46th Battalion, aboard HMAT Medic (A7) on 20 May 1916. During his service Littlejohns was promoted to Corporal and transferred to the 4th Machine Gun Battalion. He was awarded a Meritorious Service Medal "for good service and loyal devotion to duty as Orderly Room corporal. Throughout the operations in France he has shown himself a capable and hard working NCO under most trying circumstances in the field, and his work has been of great value to his unit." He returned to Australia on 9 March 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.