Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Portrait of 4061 Private (Pte) Malcolm Balfour. Pte Balfour enlisted on 16 November 1914 at Bairnsdale, Victoria. He was initially rejected because of varicose veins. After removal of the varicose vein, he was accepted into the AIF and was eventually appointed to the 10th Reinforcements of the 23rd Battalion. He embarked on HMAT Wiltshire on 7 March 1916. He arrived in England for training then onto France on 27 July 1916. He joined his unit on 4 August 1916. Private Balfour was killed in action on 16 August 1916 at Pozieres, France. 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 a unit name, for each negative.