Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 4426 Private Allan Albert. A groom from Jung, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Albert had been previously been rejected due to bad teeth. After successfully enlisting he embarked with the 14th Reinforcements, 14th Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Ballarat on18 February 1916. On 7 August 1916, aged 25, he was killed in action and having no known grave, he is commemorated on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial. His brother 3227 Pte John Reuben Albert also served however on the voyage home he was diagnosed as suffering from tuberculosis and passed away in Melbourne on 18 September 1919 (see DA11352). 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.