Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 3932 Private (Pte) Frederick James Scanlon. A labourer from Preston, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Scanlon had been previously been rejected due to bad teeth and after successfully enlisting he embarked with the 9th Reinforcements, 23rd Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Warilda on 8 February 1916. Later receiving a shrapnel wound to his left shoulder he was invalided to England. Later re-joining his battalion he contracted bronchitis and was again invalided to England. After recovering he continued to serve with his unit and returned to Australia on 15 May 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.