Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 1938 Private (Pte) Frank Hillman Hitchins, 57th Battalion. A farmer from Hill End via Moe, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Hitchins embarked with the 3rd Reinforcements from Melbourne on HMAT Ajana on 8 July 1916. Following his transfer to the 59th Battalion he was killed in action on 8 February 1971, aged 21. Originally buried near where he fell, his remains were later exhumed and re-interred in the Bancourt British Cemetery, Bapaume, France. 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.