Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 3628 Private (Pte) Norman Crabe Rennie. An engineer from Bairnsdale, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Rennie embarked with the 8th Reinforcements, 22nd Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Afric on 5 January 1916. He later served with the 59th Battalion and then the 25th Field Artillery Brigade where he was wounded in the left leg and evacuated to England. Following his recovery he served with the 10th Light Trench Mortar Battery and was admitted to hospital suffering from trench fever. After re-joining his unit he was killed in action on 27 September 1918, aged 26, and was buried in the Templeux-le- Guerard Cemetery, France. On 5 October 1918 his brother 2nd Lieutenant George Ewen Rennie was killed in action on 5 October 1918 at Montbrehain. 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.