Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 555 Sapper (Spr) John William Finlayson, No.1 Mining Corps. A miner from Beechworth, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Finlayson embarked with No. 2 Company from Sydney on HMAT Ulysses on 20 January 1916. Later transferring to No. 2 Tunnelling Company he developed influenza. On 22 May 1916, aged 24, he succumbed to his illness and was buried in the Hazebrouck Communal Cemetery, 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.