Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 3460 Private John Arthur Ralston, 59th Battalion from Portarlington, Victoria. An 18 year old labourer prior to enlisting on 23 April 1917, he embarked for overseas with the 9th Reinforcements from Sydney on 16 July 1917 aboard HMAT Port Melbourne. He died from meningitis on 21 July 1918 at the 5th General Hospital, Rouen, France and is buried in St Sever Cemetery Extension, Rouen. This is one of a series of photographs taken by the Darge Photographic Company which had the 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.