Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 4793 Private (Pte) Alfred William Guest (centre) and 4752 Pte Charles Frank Church (left), both of the 8th Battalion and an unidentified soldier. Pte Guest, a joiner from East Brunswick, Victoria prior to enlistment and Pte Church, a labourer from South Adelaide, SA prior to enlistment, both embarked with the 15th Reinforcements from Melbourne on HMAT Wiltshire on 7 March 1916. After arriving in Egypt, Pte Guest developed a hernia and, following an operation, returned to Australia on 10 July 1916 and was medically discharged. Pte Church was initially posted as missing in action in France and a subsequent court of enquiry determined that he had been killed in action on 18 August 1916, a month before his 16th birthday. His remains were later recovered and interred in the Pozieres British Cemetery, Ovillers-La Boisselle, 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. (See also DAOD1497 and DA13633)