Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 3453 Private (Pte) Percy Baker. A labourer from Terang, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Baker embarked with the 8th Reinforcements, 21st Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Demosthenes on 29 December 1915. Later transferring to the 59th Battalion he was posted as missing in action. A subsequent court of enquiry determined that he had been killed in action on 19 July 1916 and buried somewhere in no-man’s land during the Battle of Fromelles. Following the Armistice his remains could not be recovered and he is commemorated on the VC Corner Australian Cemetery and Memorial, Fromelles, France. His brother 3454 Pte Hugh Baker was wounded in action (See DA13162). 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.