Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 4137 Private (Pte) Gilbert Darlow Blackwell. Originally from Kettering, England, Pte Blackwell was a labourer from Nar-Nar-Goon, Victoria prior to enlistment and embarked with the 13th Reinforcements, 6th Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Demosthenes on 29 December 1915. After being wounded in the forehead he was invalided to hospital. After re-joining hid battalion he was invalided to hospital suffering from trench foot. He later served with the 1st Machine Gun Battalion and, prior to his return to Australia, he took the opportunity to be married and returned to Australia on 14 July 1919. This is one of a series of photographs taken by the Darge Photographic Company which had a permit 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.