Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Accession Number DA13444
Collection type Photograph
Object type Black & white - Glass original half plate negative
Maker Darge Photographic Company
Place made Australia: Victoria, Melbourne, Broadmeadows
Date made 11 January 1916
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 4429 Private (Pte) Robert Peter Atkinson, 8th Battalion, of Ballarat, Vic. Pte Atkinson enlisted on 15 October 1915 and embarked aboard HMAT Themistocles on 28 January 1916. On 1 April 1916 he transferred to the 58th Battalion. On 14 July 1916, when moving in the vicinity of Sailly, the unit was shelled and Atkinson was killed, along with 4436 William Stanley Bray (also associated with Cambrian Hill where Atkinson's parents lived), 3498 Frederick Charles Douglas and 3187 Alexander Miller, both of Geelong. 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.