Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 4165 Private (Pte) Leslie Gordon Copeland. An engine cleaner from Bowen Vale, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Copeland embarked with the 13th Reinforcements, 5th Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Demosthenes on 29 December 1915. He later transferred to the 1st Pioneer Battalion and was allotted the service number 4165A. He was later wounded in the hand and promoted to Lance Corporal. After being briefly attached to the 21st Machine Gun Company he re-joined his unit. On 24 August 1918, aged 22, he was killed in action and was buried in the Heath Cemetery, Picardie, 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.