Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 4956 Private (Pte) Frederick William Struhs, 7th Battalion from Swan Reach, Victoria. A 20 year old labourer prior to enlisting on 3 August 1915, he embarked for overseas with the 15th Reinforcements from Melbourne on 7 March 1916 aboard HMAT Wiltshire. After training in Egypt, he deployed to France in June 1916 and was then evacuated to England in July 1916 suffering from pneumonia. He recovered and joined the 59th Battalion in France on 29 December 1916. After being wounded in action on 19 June 1918, he later died of his wounds on 28 June 1918 and is buried in the Vignacourt British Cemetery, France. His older brother 6083 Pte Robert August Struhs enlisted on 1 March 1916 and served overseas with the 5th Battalion, the 39th Battalion and the 5th Machine Gun Battalion and returned to Australia in February 1919. This is one of a series of photographs taken by the Darge Photographic Company which had the concession 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. The names are transcribed as they appear in the notebooks.