Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 2575 Corporal (Cpl) Frank Allen Dixon, 7th Battalion. A clerk from Upper Hawthorn, Vic prior to enlistment, Dixon embarked with the rank of Private with the 8th Reinforcements from Melbourne aboard HMAT Anchises on 26 August 1915. After transferring to the 59th Battalion he was promoted to Lance Sergeant. Initially reported as missing in action a later Court of Enquiry determined that he had been killed in action on 19 July 1916 at Fleurbaix, France, aged 22. He is commemorated on the VC Corner Australian Cemetery Memorial, Fromelles, France. His cousin, 1314 Private Ernest Frank Wilkin, 29th Battalion, was also killed in action on the same day. 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.