Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 3769 Acting Sergeant (A/Sgt) Henry Seymour Hayes. An outfitter from St Kilda, Victoria prior to enlistment, A/Sgt Hayes embarked with the 12th Reinforcements, 7th Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Ceramic on 23 November 1915. Later transferring to the 59th Battalion he was promoted to Sergeant and posted as missing in action. A subsequent court of enquiry determined that he had been killed in action on 19 July 1916 and had been buried in no-man’s land. Following the Armistice his grave could not be located and he is commemorated on the VC Corner Australian Cemetery and Memorial, Fromelles, France. 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.