Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 3149 Private (Pte) John Frederick Allen Soderstrom, 10th Reinforcements, 8th Battalion. A labourer of Ballarat, Victoria prior to enlistment in the 8th Battalion, he embarked from Adelaide aboard RMS Osterley on 29 September 1915 for Egypt. Pte Soderstrom was transferred to the 60th Battalion briefly before being transferred to the 58th Battalion in March 1916. His new unit relocated to the Western Front, France, during June 1916. Pte Soderstrom was wounded in action on 19 July 16 near Estaires, France, and was treated in No 3 Canadian General Hospital before rejoining his unit in late September 1916. He was hospitalised for a month with muscle pain, and rejoined his battalion on 29 December 1916. Pte Soderstrom was killed in action near Albert, France, on 2 February 1917. He was aged 20 years. He was brother in law to 4618 Pte Ernest Edward Worrall who died of wounds on 26 September 1917. 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.