Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Group portrait including 3643 Acting Sergeant (A/Sgt) Reginald Robert Dell (centre). A trunk maker from Launceston, Tasmania prior to enlistment, A/Sgt Dell embarked with the 8th Reinforcements, 26th Battalion on HMAT Afric on 5 January 1916. Later promoted to Sergeant he was invalided to England suffering from a bayonet wound to the left thigh. Following his recovery he transferred to the 9th Battalion and was wounded in the left thigh. He was subsequently awarded the Military Medal for his great calmness and deliberation during an operation near Le Barque, France. He was later promoted to Second Lieutenant and after the Armistice he was promoted to Lieutenant and returned to Australia on 5 September 1919. He later served with the rank of Captain with the 9th Garrison Battalion during the Second World War. 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.