Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 4977 Private (Pte) Charles Albert Victor Collins. A platelayer from Stawell, Victoria enlisted on 9 August 1915 but due to the fact that his attestation papers had been lost his embarkation was delayed. He eventually embarked with the 15th Reinforcements, 5th Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Wiltshire on 7 March 1916. Later wounded in the head he was evacuated to the 3rd Casualty Clearing Station. Following his recovery he transferred to the 58th Battalion and on 9 December 1916, aged 29, he was killed in action. Having no known grave he is commemorated on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial. 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.