Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 4208 Private (Pte) Ernest Alfred Hall. A farmer from Beech Forest via Colac, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Hall embarked with the 13th Reinforcements, 5th Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Demosthenes on 29 December 1915. He later transferred to the 1st Pioneer Battalion and given the regimental number 4208A. On 4 October 1917, aged 22, he was killed in action and buried in the Belgian Battery Corner Cemetery, Ypres, Belgium. 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.