Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Group portrait of 19758 Gunner (Gnr) Arthur John Sellars (standing) and 15101 Gnr Arthur Harry Vernon Hale, both of the 8th Field Artillery Brigade taken while undergoing artillery training in Victoria. Gnr Sellars, a clerk from Fremantle, WA prior to enlistment, embarked with the 30th Battery from Sydney on HMAT Medic on 20 May 1916. Following his promotion to Sergeant he was wounded in action but remained on duty. Later commissioned as a Lieutenant, he returned to Australia on 1 July 1919. Gnr Hale, a civil servant from Fremantle, WA prior to enlistment embarked with the rank of Acting Sergeant with the 2nd Reinforcements, 10th Field Artillery Brigade from Melbourne on HMAT Port Lincoln on 4 May 1916. Later reverting to the rank of Gunner, he was wounded in action. Subsequently suffering from curvature of the spine, he returned to Australia on 19 October 1918 and was medically discharged. 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.