Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 7540 Private (Pte) Robert McTaggart. A labourer from North Williamstown, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte McTaggart embarked with the 25th Reinforcements, 6th Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Themistocles on 4 August 1917. On 24 April 1918 he was killed in action and, following the Armistice, his remains were exhumed and buried in the Outtersteene Communal Cemetery Extension, Bailleul, France. 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.