Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Portrait for Mr and Mrs Schroeder. The sergeant is a member of the artillery and is probably 169 Oscar Henry Schroeder, a soldier with the Royal Australian Garrison Artillery (RAGA) at the time of his enlistment. He may be wearing the sergeant’s stripes attained during his five years of service with the RAGA. With the rank of corporal, Oscar Schroeder embarked from Melbourne, with the Siege Artillery Brigade, aboard HMAT Orsova (A67) on 17 July 1915. He later served as a gunner with the 36th Heavy Artillery Group. Gunner Schroeder died of wounds on 2 May 1917 in France. Mr and Mrs Schroeder may have come to Darge's studio to have this portrait copied in 1919. Oscar’s parents were William and Ann Schroeder. This is one of a series of photographs taken by the Darge Photographic Company which had a permit 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. The names are transcribed as they appear in the notebooks.