Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Portrait of Lieutenant (Lt) L J Wackett, Australian Flying Corps. An officer with the Permanent Forces, Lt Lawrence James Wackett enlisted on 6 January 1916. He embarked with C Flight, No. 1 Squadron from Melbourne aboard HMAT Orsova (A67) on 16 March 1916. During his service with No. 1 Squadron and later No. 3 Squadron, he flew on operations involving reconnaissance, bombing, strafing, air to air combat and aerial photography. For his service Wackett was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Force Cross. With the rank of Major he returned to Australia in November 1919. Following the war, Wackett continued his career in aviation by joining in the newly formed RAAF, qualifying as an aeronautical engineer. He commanded the RAAF Experimental Section in Sydney where he was worked on the design and construction of aircraft.
Later he joined the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation becoming its general manager. There he was involved in the conception and design of aircraft such as the Wackett trainer and Boomerang fighter. Lawrence Wackett was knighted in 1954. 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. The names are transcribed as they appear in the notebooks.