Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 3748 Private (Pte) William Herbert Collins. A farm labourer from Bendigo, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Collins embarked with the 12th Reinforcements, 5th Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Ceramic on 23 November 1915. Later wounded in the left arm he was evacuated to England. Following his recovery he re-joined his battalion and was promoted to Lance Corporal. Subsequently developing pneumonia he was again evacuated to England and admitted to the 1st Australian General Hospital where, on 1 February 1919, he succumbed to his illness and was buried in the Tidworth Military Cemetery, Wiltshire, England with full military honours. 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.