Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 2081 Private (Pte) Roy Scott Bettles, 3rd Reinforcements, 23rd Battalion, of Heyfield, Victoria. Pte Bettles enlisted on 25 August 1915 and embarked from Melbourne aboard HMAT Anchises on 26 August 1915. He was killed in action on 28 July 1916 at Pozieres, France. His brother 1887 Pte Charles Leslie Bettles was also killed in action on 29 July 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 unit name, for each negative.