Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 3937 Private (Pte) Edward George Seymour and an unidentified soldier (positions unknown). A salesman from Hawthorn, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Seymour embarked with the 9th Reinforcements, 22nd Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Warilda on 8 February 1916. He was later invalided to England suffering from shell shock and a gunshot wound to the hand. After re-joining his battalion he was again invalided to England after being wounded in the right leg. He was still recovering when the Armistice was declared and he returned to Australia on 25 January 1919. 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.