Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 2079 Private (Pte) Francis Duke Martin. Originally from Huddersfield, England, Pte Martin was a farm manager from Melbourne, Victoria prior to enlistment and embarked with the 3rd Reinforcements, 29th Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Ballarat on 18 February 1916. He was later admitted to hospital suffering from influenza. After re-joining his battalion he was promoted through the ranks up to the rank of Sergeant. On 27 September 1917, aged 32, he was killed in action at Polygon Wood and, having no known grave, is commemorated on the Menin Gate memorial, Ypres, Belgium. This is one of a series of photographs taken by the Darge Photographic Company which had a concession 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