Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 2138 Private (Pte) John Cyril Davis, 5th Battalion. A native of Gloucester, England and a labourer from Melbourne, Vic prior to enlistment, Pte Davis embarked with the 6th Reinforcements from Sydney aboard HMAT Ceramic on 26 June 1915. On 24 August 1915 he died at Alexandria, Egypt, aged 23, from wounds received in action at Gallipoli, and was buried in the Chatby War Memorial Cemetery, Egypt. This is one of a series of photographs taken by the Darge Photographic Company which had the 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.