Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 3134 Private (Pte) William Sharples, 10th Reinforcements, 6th Battalion. A labourer of Yarraville, Victoria, prior to enlistment he embarked from Melbourne aboard RMS Osterley on 29 September 1915 for Egypt. The battalion relocated to the Western Front, France, during March 1916. In October 1917 Pte Sharples was hospitalised due to an accidental wound to his foot and rejoined his battalion in the field on 2 January 1917. Pte Sharples was killed in action near Passchendaele, Belgium, on 4 October 1917. He was aged 24 years. 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.