Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 4293 Private (Pte) Albert Richmond Smith (right) and an unidentified soldier. A labourer from Pascoe Vale, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Smith embarked with the 13th Reinforcements, 7th Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Demosthenes on 29 December 1915. Later wounded in the neck and shoulder at Pozieres, France he was evacuated to England, where on 28 August 1916, aged 19, he succumbed to his wounds and was buried in St Pauls Churchyard, Rust Hall, Kent England. 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.