Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of Private (Pte) Andrew Buckham Davidson Neal, 24th Battalion from Upper Gippsland, Victoria. A 20 year old labourer prior to enlistment on 18 June 1915, he embarked for overseas with the 3rd Reinforcements from Melbourne on 26 August 1915 aboard HMAT Anchises. He joined the 24th Battalion at Gallipoli on 7 November 1915 and served there until the evacuation in December. In March 1916 the battalion deployed to France where Pte Neal was killed in action near Pozieres on 29 July 1916. He is commemorated on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial, France with others who have no known grave. This is one of a series of photographs taken by the Darge Photographic Company which had the concession 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. The names are transcribed as they appear in the notebooks.