Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 4650 Private (Pte) Gottlieb Abraham Dietrich. A dairy farmer from Mirboo, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Dietrich attended the AIF Signal School before embarking with the 14th Reinforcements, 14th Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Ballarat on 18 February 1916. He was later awarded the Military Medal for conspicuous gallantry. Subsequently promoted to Lance Corporal he returned to Australia on 7 February 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. See DA13788.