Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 4802 Private John James White, 22nd Battalion, with his wife Lillian, son Colin and baby daughter Myrl. A blacksmith prior to enlisting on 12 February 1916, he embarked at Melbourne with the 12th Reinforcements to the 22nd Battalion aboard HMAT Euripides (A14) on 4 April 1916. He joined his unit in France in September, serving in the Ypres sector and returning to the Somme for the winter of 1916-1917. During this period he was promoted several times. On 3 May, 1917, Sergeant White was killed in action during the Second Battle of Bullecourt. He was 29 years old.

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.