Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Portrait of P J Walsh copied for the Cobram Honour Roll. The soldier is probably 10379 Sapper (Spr) Patrick Joseph Walsh, an engine driver from Numurkah, Victoria, prior to enlistment. Spr Walsh embarked from Melbourne with the 10th Field Company Engineers aboard HMAT Runic (A54) on 20 June 1916. He returned to Australia with the 2nd Field Company Engineers on 20 June 1919. During the First World War the Cobram and District Soldiers Fund initiated a project to create a Cobram Honour Roll. It was to include portraits of servicemen who had links to the Cobram area. The Fund arranged for portraits to be copied by the Darge Photographic Company at its Collins Street Studio, Melbourne. Around 100 copy prints were supplied by the Darge company but it is not known if the roll was ever constructed. In the 1930s, the Australian War Memorial purchased 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. The names are transcribed as they appear in the notebooks.