Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 822 Private (Pte) Albert Lewis Benjamin, labourer, of Spotswood, Victoria. He enlisted in the 24th Battalion on 31 March 1915 and embarked on HMAT Euripides on 8 May 1915 for Gallipoli. Pte Benjamin was wounded in action on 19 December 1915 and was evacuated to 19th General Hospital, Alexandria, for treatment. He rejoined his unit on 8 March 1916 shortly before the Battalion relocated to the Western Front, France. Pte Benjamin was killed in action on 29 July 1916 at Pozieres, aged 34 years. He has no known grave and his name is recorded on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial, France. 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.