Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Place Europe: France, Nord Pas de Calais, Nord, Lille, Fromelles, Pheasant Wood Military Cemetery
Accession Number DA09996
Collection type Photograph
Object type Black & white - Glass original half plate negative
Maker Darge Photographic Company
Place made Australia: Victoria, Melbourne, Broadmeadows
Date made c August 1915
Conflict First World War, 1914-1918
Copyright

Item copyright: Copyright expired - public domain

Public Domain Mark This item is in the Public Domain

Description

Studio portrait of 191 Private (Pte) Henry Bell, an Insurance agent of Bendigo, Victoria. Pte Bell enlisted in the 29th Battalion on 21 July 1915 and embarked from Melbourne aboard HMAT Ascanius on 10 November 1915 for Suez. The Battalion remained in the Suez Canal area on training until 16 June 1916 when they embarked for France and the Western Front. Pte Bell was initially reported missing in action. Subsequently, his identity disc was received from Germany and he was reported to have been killed in action on 19 July 1916 at Fleurbaix, France, aged 39 years. After the war his grave could not be located and he was commemorated on the VC Corner Australian Cemetery Memorial, Fromelles, France. In 2008 a burial ground was located at nearby Pheasant Wood containing the bodies of 250 British and Australian soldiers including Pte Bell. All of the remains were reburied in the newly created Fromelles (Pheasant Wood) Military Cemetery. At the time of the official dedication of the new cemetery on 19 July 2010, ninety-six of the Australians had been identified through a combination of anthropological, archaeological, historical and DNA information. Work is continuing on identifying the other remains relocated from the burial ground and buried in the new cemetery as unknown soldiers. Pte Bell is among those who have not been identified and his name will remain on the VC Corner Australian Cemetery Memorial. 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.