Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 4293 Private (Pte) Clarence Sylvester Smith. A gardener from Doncaster, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Smith embarked with the 13th Reinforcements, 7th Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Demosthenes on 29 December 1915. Later suffering from severe appendicitis he was evacuated to hospital in France. Later promoted to Lance Corporal he transferred to the 5th Machine Gun Battalion. Subsequently suffering from trench fever he was evacuated to England. Still suffering from debility caused by the fever he returned to Australia on 20 Decembefr 1918. 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.