Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 3900 Private (Pte) Robert Fearnley Pearson and two other persons, probably his wife Annie Evelyn Pearson and their son Robert Junior. A driver from South Yarra Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Pearson embarked with the 12th Reinforcements, 6th Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Ceramic on 23 November 1915. On 24 July 1916, aged 26, he was killed in action near Pozieres and buried in the vicinity. After the Armistice his remains could not be recovered and he is commemorated on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial, France. His brother 1114 Pte George Charles Pearson was killed in action on 21 July 1916 and a second brother 345 Pte John Leslie Pearson was killed in action on 15 April 1918. 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. See also DA12576.