Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 1762 Private (Pte) William Bernard Nankervis, 23rd Battalion from Bendigo, Victoria. A 20 year old salesman prior to enlistment on 10 May 1915, he embarked for overseas with the 2nd Reinforcements from Melbourne on 16 July 1915 aboard HMAT Demosthenes. After serving at Gallipoli, he went on to serve on the Western Front where he was killed in action at Pozieres, France on 4 August 1916. Pte Nankervis 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.