Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 3980 Private (Pte) Bernard Michael Connelly. A labourer from Learmonth, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Connelly embarked with the 9th Reinforcements, 24th Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Warilda on 8 February 1916. He was later evacuated to England suffering from gas poisoning. After recovering he re-joined his battalion he was killed in action on 12 October 1918, aged 21, and was buried in the Ramiecourt Communal Cemetery Extension. His remains were later exhumed and re-interred in the Tincourt New British 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.