Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 3868 Private (Pte) Hugh Lennon. A sleeper hewer from Burnley, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Lennon had previously been rejected due to having unsound teeth. Following his successful enlistment he embarked with the 9th Reinforcements, 23rd Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Warilda on 8 February 1916. He was later reported as missing in action and it was subsequently determined that he had been killed in action on 4 August 1916 and buried just North of Pozieres. Following the Armistice his remains were recovered and re-interred in the Courcelette British Cemetery, Picardie, France. 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.