Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 3536 Private (Pte) William Albert Gradner. A labourer from Germantown via Geelong, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Gradner embarked with the 8th Reinforcements, 22nd Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Afric on 5 January 1916. He later served with the 57th Battalion and then the 5th Pioneer Battalion where he was diagnosed as suffering from deafness. After being cleared to resume active service he joined the 5th Australian Machine Gun Battalion. Subsequently admitted to the 3rd Australian General Hospital suffering from broncho pneumonia, he succumbed to his illness on 15 November 1918 and was buried in the Abbeville Communal Cemetery Extension, Picardie, France. His brother 1686 Pte August Frederick Gradner died of wounds on 30 March 1917. This is one of a series of photographs taken by the Darge Photographic Company which had a permit 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.