Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 3485 Private (Pte) William John Cations. A labourer from Teasdale, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Cations embarked with the 8th Reinforcements, 22nd Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Afric on 5 January 1916. He later transferred to the 57th Battalion and then the 58th Battalion. On 15 July 1916 he was killed in action, aged 38, and was believed to have been buried in the Rue Petillon Military Cemetery, however following the Armistice his remains could not be recovered and he is commemorated on the Villers-Bretonneux Cemetery. His nephew 2800 Pte Morriss Anderson Cations died of wounds on 15 January 1917. This is one of a series of photographs taken by the Darge Photographic Company which had a 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.