Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 4239 Private (Pte) Charles McLean. A farmer from Bangerang, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte McLean embarked along with his brother 4238 Pte Alexander McLean with the 13th Reinforcements, 5th Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Demosthenes on 29 December 1915. On 25 July 1916, aged 20, he was killed in action at Pozieres and having no known grave he is commemorated on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial. Tragically he brother was killed on the same day. 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. See also DA13045.