Original photographers note from Darge Coy. register book: "Portrait of Pentridge Tent, N ...

Original photographers note from Darge Coy. register book: "Portrait of Pentridge Tent, N Company". The Darge Photogaphic Company routinely sent photographers around Seymour and Broadmeadows camps to take speculative portraits of groups and individuals. A quick note of the name of someone in the group, or where they were from, normally sufficed and enabled any of the men to follow up later and purchase prints from the company's onsite darkroom. Not expecting the photographer's arrival, commonly during meal times in the tent lines, many men responded with light hearted descriptions of themselves such as the "Hamilton Boys", the "Bendigo Boys", the "Friendless Boys" or in this case the "Pentridge [gaol] Tent". At the far right, sitting on a chest is 3081 Private (Pte) Edward Edwards,7th reinforcements to the 24th Battalion. Pte Edwards, a clerk from Wangaratta Vic., embarked from Port Melbourne aboard HMAT A73 Commonwealth on 26 November 1915 and was killed in action serving with the 8th Battlalion on 26 July 1916 at Pozieres, France. His brother 3082 Pte Charles Edwards enlisted on the same day, in the same unit and has a consecutive regimental number. He too embarked on HMAT Commonwealth, similarly served with the 8th Battalion and survived the war returning to Australia on 18 May 1919. Pte Edward Edwards had been prompted to enlist following the death of a school friend from Wangaratta High School. 347 Pte Charles Powley, 7th Bn, was killed at the landing at Anzac Cove on 25 April 1915. The glass negative of this image is held in the National Collection as DAODS00461.